Marcus D. Hanwell's Blog

I just thought I would wish everyone out there a happy new year. I have given the parties a miss this year, but had a great party yesterday where lots of old friends from university along with a few new ones came over to our house. We cooked dinner for everyone and then played party games, talked and drank well into the morning. The house is still a mess, I will be eating leftovers for a week but I had a really good night. I figured I could get some work done tonight and tomorrow - my thesis certainly needs as much time as I can spare for it! Gentoo development has also been neglected recently due to me writing up my thesis.

2006 has been a pretty good year overall. I got to do quite a bit of traveling to Baltimore, Malta, Dublin and several places around the UK diving. I recently got my PADI divemaster certification. I ran my first 10 km race and am in the best shape I have been for years. It hasn't been a perfect year as my thesis is still not complete and I have not found a postdoctoral position as yet. I will be getting my thesis finished very soon though and I have a week in Hurghada, Egypt to look forward to.

I am going to have a think about new years resolutions. Last year it was to lose weight and get back into shape and that worked out pretty well. Completing my thesis will certainly be in there! I hope you all have a great new year whatever you are doing. I am going to go and join Louise at her parents before the new year gets here!

Happy new year!

I have been meaning to write about this for a while now and new year's eve (grammar?) seems quite appropriate. In mid-January we changed gyms from Virgin Active to Greens. Part of the reason was because Greens was in a more convenient location, some because Virgin Active had become so busy over the last few months it was difficult to use and partly because their staff never really delivered on their promise of offering regular training advice as part of our membership.

In 2005 I made some progress and got into better shape but didn't really get anywhere near to reaching my goals of losing weight and getting into better shape. I think I tried my first ever diet in 2005 too, starting off with just trying to cut out junk, then trying the Atkins diet for a while and then going back to just cutting out rubbish again. The first picture shows a photo of me in July 2004 before I started out on my quest to get back into shape. Below is pretty much after about a year of going to Virgin Active and trying various diets (and getting married) in January 2006.

By January I had lost some weight, I was swimming pretty regularly, eating pretty well most of the time and we had found a reasonable diet that made sense and that we stuck to on the whole - the GI Diet which to me seems like a healthier, more scientifically sound and less extreme version of the Atkins diet. It also doesn't require too much planning which is great for me. We also watched a TV programme and I later bought a short paperback book written by Paul McKenna called "I Can Make You Thin" which contains some very simple advice which I could have probably thought of on my own but hadn't taken the time to consider until reading it.

As part of my induction at Greens I met a woman called Debs who is one of the trainers there and she outlined my initial exercise program. She also invited us along to a healthy eating session the gym runs for its members and encouraged me to use my monthly review session. At Greens they really seemed to stick to their end of the bargain which helped me to stick to mine. Most of the time I managed to eat healthily and adopted Deb's philosophy (and the GI diet's too I think) on trying to eat natural unprocessed foods as much as possible.

I slowly started running on the treadmill (hadn't run for more than three or four minutes before that since school), going to a few classes like spinning and following my exercise program. I also weighed myself at least once a week and kept a record so I always knew how I was doing without becoming neurotic about the occasional blips. The result is the last picture. In a year I have gone from having a BMI in excess of 30 (which horrified me when I found out) to one of just over 26. I think I have lost over 25 kg in the last year (although a little has crept back on in the last month).

I usually workout three to four times a week now, I ran my first 10km race for the British Heart Foundation and am planning to go in a few more and do the Sheffield half marathon in May next year! I feel better by far and have gone from being an overweight geek to a much leaner one - I remember Donnie noting how open source developers tend to be overweight or very skinny in a previous post. I am pleased to be moving over to the skinny side of the fence!

I feel much better at my leaner weight and my health in general has improved. We have also cut out the majority of processed food and tend to eat wholegrain stuff and well in excess of the five a day (portions of fruit and vegetables) the government recommends. Going forward into the new year I will probably shed a bit more weight, that should make the half marathon a little easier. Other than that I am going to try to improve my aerobic fitness and concentrate on completing my doctoral thesis and finding a job!

It was tough getting back into shape but well worth it. I for one am glad to be out of the obese bracket and never intend to go back there. I think having hobbies such as scuba diving really help me stick to that. Seeing the photos all on one page it really does shock me just how different I look now.

Update: This xkcd entry seems especially relevant

Did you all have a very merry Xmas or was it more of a bah, humbug for you? I have to admit I personally do not have much time for the season of excess and high expectations which are all too often not met for many people. Getting together with family, eating and drinking too much to spend the next few months regretting it for emotional or weight related reasons

I think it can be fun for children if done in the right way but adults should see it as a chance to spend time with family and friends. I personally look forward to getting together with friends in between Christmas and New Year. As an atheist I have no problems with the religious message of Christmas being lost (they borrowed most of it from the pagans and various others anyway). I dislike not being able to nip into the shops and the disruption to my schedule but you get used to it. I do however always look forward to meeting up with old friends.

This year was always going to be worse than others for me as I am behind on the completion of my thesis (should have been done by now) and so every spare moment is spent writing that up. There are also various things around the house that need finishing up... I for one don't feel the need or wish to conform to the Christmas traditions, most of which were made up in the last 100 or so years. I hope you all got what you wanted from Christmas, or if not at least got out of it without too many lasting scars

I for one will be getting back to work now!

When I got back from work today I had a very big letter from PADI. I didn't think they were going to get it to me in time for Christmas but they managed it in the end! They seem to have butchered the photo I took so long getting ready for them. I got a nice head and shoulders shot like they asked for, printed it at exactly the size they wanted, trimmed it down and sent it off. They seem to have used the nastiest scanner they could find, butchered the colour and zoomed right in on my face and skipped the shoulders part they asked for.

It is nice to have my first black card though - ready for our holiday out to Egypt next month. Everyone from Tigerdive went out yesterday to the pub too and I got my Tigerdivemaster engraved hip flask too. I am sure that will come in useful over the holiday season.

Back to writing up my thesis now... Need to get it finished, need to get it finished, need to get it finished... I want a shave - it's all itchy!

Louise and I did a one mile santa dash last Sunday around the Winter Gardens in Sheffield city centre. It was for the British Heart Foundation and we got a santa suit included in our entry fee to keep forever (don't think many people would want it after we ran a mile in it). I was feeling really out of shape after the Christmas parties and drinking I have done over the last few weeks not to mention muscular atrophy due to being tied to my computer writing up my thesis when I haven't been out drinking!

The Sheffield Star wrote a short article about it here and Louise thinks she might be in the picture too. Even though I was feeling out of shape I still managed to stay with the front group the whole way round...I was at the back of it but still in the group of front runners. I forgot to start my stop watch but I reckon I managed it in a fair time and I was very out of breath at the end!

I am hoping to find a local 10 km run for the New Year to help me run off some of the rubbish I have been eating recently. It was good fun and I even have a tacky santa suit should I need one.

I got an email from PADI member services today with my Divemaster number - I am #642006. I was quite excited to receive it but was hoping I would have the card by now. It is quite special as you keep this number for the rest of your professional qualifications with PADI. It doesn't mean that much if you are not into diving though.

I might not be able to get diving for quite some time though as I am stuck writing up my thesis as well as being pretty broke due to the way in which PhDs are funded over here. It will be a tough holiday period writing up and being broke but this should be the last one as a student! Hopefully next year will be a good one for work and diving - ideally I will have lots more time to do some development too!

I got my train down to London at 7:14 I think it was, on Tuesday morning; bleary eyed and tired armed with my poster, invitation, small A4 posters and a camera (travelled light due to the security restrictions). Managed to get on one of the new Midland Mainline trains with all the snazzy displays and stuff on it. The train left on time and got in five minutes early, far smoother than previous journeys I have taken down to London. Once on the tube I spotted someone else carrying a poster tube and got chatting to her.

At the Westminster tube station we bumped into more poster tube carrying people all destined for Physics 2006. We went into the House of Commons via a side entrance. This was my first trip to the House of Commons and security was pretty tight with the metal detector arches, X-ray scanners and police officers frisking us on entry. Once inside I found out we weren't supposed to take photos and it became clear that the terrace marquee was nowhere near what I thought of as the House of Commons.


I was in the second round of poster presentations, so once everyone had set up I walked round and looked at some of the other posters in the first round. There were some interesting posters being presented with some in similar areas to my own research. There was also one poster that was printed on A4 sheets and looked like a paper that had been printed and stuck up on string theory; I have never been to a poster presentation without at least one of these.

The poster boards were an unusual width which meant my A0 poster had to be cut down from the standard 84 cm width down to 75 cm. I have put a copy of it up here if you would like to take a look at it. It is a summary of the three main threads of the thiol encapsulated gold nanoparticle research I have conducted over the last three years. It was designed using the a0poster class and LaTeX using my favourite editor Kile on Gentoo using KDE. I have played a central role in this work but as with most work it has benefitted from collaborations with other researchers who have been credited as additional authors on the poster.

The poster boards were very closely packed in a zig-zag pattern. This made it very difficult when someone was looking at the poster facing mine and someone else came along wanting to look at mine and discuss it. When my poster judge came along she couldn't even see my poster whilst I was explaining it to her which did not help at all. I think the traditional straight arrangement would fit a few less in possibly but it would be far better at a busy event held in quite a small room.

There were several prizes awarded at the event but none of us from Sheffield won one. I did talk to some interesting people on the day. My MP Richard Caborn never replied to me or my coworker and the MPs in attendance seemed to just want to look at their constituents posters, get a few photographs taken and leave. I have never encountered MPs before and I did find this behaviour surprising, but I have only attended scientific conferences before this event.

I had a quick look around the bits of the House of Commons we were allowed in after the speeches and prize presentations. Then I met up with a friend, James (edit_21), for a drink and a chat before going for my train. It was nice to catch up as I haven't made it down to London in over a year. I ended up sat next to a chef on the way back up to Sheffield and had a really interesting conversation about everything ranging from scuba diving to careers and family.

It was a really long, tiring day. It was also probably the last trip I would make as a PhD student and so a little disappointing my poster wasn't better received. I got straight back into work on my return and have only just managed to get a day out of the lab today to get some more of my thesis written up.