The Tom Gilbert Blog

Excuses time!

Well it’s been an interesting few years for me (using the Chinese definition of the word) and quite frankly, the things going on in my life were not things I really wanted to be open and honest about. I’ve always blogged almost everything that happened to me, but recently it just hasn’t been appropriate.

Why is that? A few reasons:

Divorce

There, I said it. My relationship with Sue was in decline for a few years before I opted for divorce. I’m not going to talk about details on this, for obvious reasons, it’s pretty private stuff. But it meant that I really really didn’t want to blog about my life. I wasn’t happy, things were complex and uncertain, and well, quite frankly I was embarrassed. There’s quite the social stigma still associated with divorce and it’s not something that’s easy to talk about or write about in public.

After living separately but still in the same house for a year while proceeds proceeded, I moved out earlier this year and our divorce was final (decree absolute) a few months back now.

I have no hard feelings towards Sue, we just didn’t make it as a couple, and are both moving on with our lives.

Work

Mostly due to the above, I spent most of the last 3 years investing more and more time in my work. I can’t blog about my work. Technically I’m not even supposed to write about who I work for in a public place. Annoying, but a limiting factor. The good news is my hard work and dedication earned me some promotions and I am now a Director.

Facebook

Yes, as I blogged less I used facebook more. The way things were I felt more comfortable blogging in a “closed” environment where I could limit access to just my friends, and manipulate peoples’ view of my life via privacy settings. Sad, but true. I still use facebook a lot and if you’re a friend who hasn’t joined up then you are missing out on certain types of updates from my life

Apathy

Actually it’s more like lack of self worth. I didn’t think I had anything worth blogging about so I didn’t. The divorce took it out of me and for a good while there I stopped doing stuff altogether, except working.

Bouncing back

Lately, things are better. I will start to catch up my readers over the next few posts with the kinds of things I have been up to recently, but the short version is, I have been getting out and about more, taking better care of myself, expanding my interests and traveling more. This gives me lots more interesting things to share

Software

Sorry, but for those of you who used to follow my blog for the open source software I wrote – you won’t see too much of that. I just don’t do it so much any more – my life is full of work (where I still have a technical job but don’t write code any more) and hobbies where I more and more find myself outside and away from computers. Want to fork one of my old projects? Ping me for the source code

Health

Over the 6 months I have been focusing on my health. I was getting a bit worried about my lack of fitness (as many men do in their 30s) and wanted to do something about it, so I have been doing a lot of running, cycling, walking and other outdoor activities. I will be blogging about those quite a bit, I’m sure, so you’ll see what I mean!