I will never buy a player shirt from Manchester City again...

This would have been more timely about a month ago. It is only timely now because Manchester City is beginning its second UEFA Champions League campaign later today facing Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu after being assigned to another "group of death".

My wife and I have a running joke that any time we decide we like a product, the company producing it either ruins it by degradative changes, or discontinuing the product altogether. As this photo indicates, I seem to have the same effect on soccer players.

I admit that my Martin Petrov shirt was a late season discounted quixotic vote of support for a player whom, by injuries and management changes, I knew was probably on his way out. He was released by the club less than two weeks after I received my shirt, and moved to Bolton Wanderers on a free transfer about three weeks after that.

I liked the style of last year's away shirt, and was interested in purchasing one throughout the entire season.  Again, selecting a quick winger, Adam Johnson was chosen both because his play had made him my favorite player and the prevailing actions and language coming from both club and player suggested a longer term relationship may have been pending.  Lo and behold, Johnson's move to Sunderland ended up being not that big of a surprise either.

I continue to wish both Petrov and Johnson well.  Except when playing City.

In Umbro's last year as City's shirt supplier, (City announced in May that Nike will be the new shirt partner) they came up with a very nice home shirt, while the Premier League away shirt can be best described as "BORING".  I will say that even the old jerseys still get worn, as they are very comfortable to wear in the desert.

Sports being the uncertain thing that it is, while I certainly hope and believe that more Premier League Champion's badges will appear on shirts in the future, one must strike when the opportunity arises. 

Player jersey?  Not this time.  Carlos Tevez has a history of hot and cold with the club and its management.  David Silva did not get an extension until yesterday.  Javi Garcia was not signed until late in the transfer window, well after the pre-sale free scarf promotion.  Besides, who wants to see any of the current players leave the club?

OK, all in good fun, but still...

Think different.

Cheers!

Whining about writing...

Already, on a couple of occasions, I have, for lack of a better word, whined about some of the difficulties to the type of endeavor I am aspiring to.

I have stated that my own perfectionistic tendencies hamper me, particularly with regard to spelling and grammar.  The odd part about this is that some of the mass market technical books that I rely on contain numbers and types of errors that I would regard as embarrassing had I written them, yet these books continue to be trusted sources of information. I have, also, already stated that I am harder on myself than I am on other people, so this fact should not be terribly unexpected for me.

I suppose, to some degree, I am sensitive to this, because I am trying to enhance credibility and brand by utilizing a skill that I believe is, at the very least, an asset for me.

All of this notwithstanding, late last week a colleague of mine wrote something in a blog post that I found interesting.

"I had, at one time, believed that novels just flowed from mind, through fingers to page in perfect order and fully formed from chapter one to the end. Boy was I naive."

- Vincent A. Alascia, "So You Think You Have Guts, Do Ya?", posted 13 September 2012

It is not that I truly thought I was alone in my perceptions. I never really quite had this expressed thought either. I do not know Mr. Alascia well enough to really know what his issues are. I know mine revolve around the fact that my brain works faster than I can type which creates considerable difficulty getting the initial thoughts on paper. THEN, the editing is really annoying.

I have always known that editing is necessary. I have always hoped my initial drafts could be closer to the finished work than they tend to be.

Even though my ambitions are not to be a novelist, I mention this more because it is comforting that someone who has done a lot of writing appears to have similar struggles.

Maybe I can make this worth while after all...

Think different.

Cheers!

Another WOW moment this morning...

As my profile states, I am a professional enterprise software developer.  This post should appear on my planned software and technology blog, but that isn't ready yet.  As a previous post indicates, things get brought to my attention because I read the Code Project Insider Daily Developer News newsletter.

Unlike that previous post, I feel the need to share this even prior to having a detailed analysis why it is significant and important to me.

Ultimately, this is simply evidence that we live in times with unbelievable potential, but there IS more to it than that.  This will be discussed on my S&T blog later...

Think different.

Cheers!