By January 2009 started off with the BBC announcing Matt Smith as the newest incarnation of Doctor Who. I finished the final book of Terry Goodkind's Sword Of Truth series. It had an interesting twist at the end but I've read very little since and am now starting to miss reading. I also did a wee bit of baking with Chrissy and spent a fair bit of January feeling various levels of under the weather. I also spent the best part of a full day looking at a friend's PC. January saw the deaths of Ron Asheton, Patrick McGoohan and Tony Hart. January also saw me preparing to start the 2 Open University courses that I had decided to study.
February was rather a quiet month and about the only thing I did of note was attend a tutorial in Carlisle for one of my two OU courses.
March started off with the death of Paul Harvey, a voice from my youth... To be honest, little else of note occurred in March; other than receiving my first TMA (tutor-marked assignment) back.
I spent a couple of days in Folkestone at the start of April. I had taken a couple of friends down to Norfolk for a boating holiday and since I was already down country took the opportunity to visit Alastair. I sold my old laptop to Tricia as a result of getting a new one myself. April saw the death of one of the fathers of D&D; Dave Arneson.
May started off with a potential health scare for myself; although it ended up just being a muscle strain. My studies continued and I went to the cinema to watch 'Star Trek'; definitely one of the stand-out movies of the year. May ended with Manchester United coming up short against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champiopns League final.
June started off with the sad news of the death of one of my favourite authors; David Eddings. I attended the count for the European Elections and June ended with the shock news that Cristiano Ronaldo would be moving to Real Madrid.
Mid-July saw me take my old faithful system out of service and replace it with a brand new, self-built, system.
August and September were rather quiet months and saw the start of the new football season. I also revisited the problem of spam email and managed to come up with a valid and workable solution.
October saw me start a work placement with Northside Community Centre. It's a position I have enjoyed and there is a hope that something more permanent can be arranged. The end of october saw me in Glasgow for a Paradise Lost gig. It was a very enjoyable evening.
November started off with Saxon/Anvil and Biffy Clyro gigs. I also upgraded my PC from Windows Vista Ultimate x64 to Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and upgraded Dad's PC from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 Professional x64. However, the really big news from November was the extremely heavy rainfall that fell in Cumbria and resulted in the Cocker and Derwent bursting their banks and severely flooding Cockermouth. Workington Bridge, referred to as Calva Bridge by the media was badly damaged and closed as a result. Navvies footbridge was swept away. New Bridge, referred to as Northside Bridge by the media, was destroyed with the death of PC Bill Barker. A temporary footbridge, named in honour of PC Barker, has since opened and the local council have announced that they hope to have a temporary 2-way road bridge up by late spring. Work can then start on replacing New Bridge. Workington Bridge is a listed structure so discussions will need to take place to decide what happens next.
December was a very busy month at work. The community centre became a crisis centre for the local community and a number of vital services were hosted from there. We had a decent amount of snowfall the week before Christmas; which stuck around on the ground until Boxing Day. Christmas itself seemed rather quiet. Finally, I received confirmation of my 2009 course results. I passed both M150 and T175 and will start MST121 and S197 in the New Year.
Music and TV has been a fairly decent year and if I had to give a list of my top 5 films I've watched in 2009, they would be: Star Trek, District 9, Red Cliff, Zombieland and Lesbian Vampire Killers. Other films that I have watched and enjoyed this year; in no partcular order and including cinema, DVD and TV showings include: Transporter 3, Twilight, Watchmen, The Spirit, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Downloading Nancy, Push, Terminator Salvation, Angels & Demons, Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen, Ice Age 3, The Taking Of Pelham 123, Surrogates, The Wrestler and Megashark vs Giant Octopus; absolutely awful but brilliant because of it.
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