Now
Bio
- I’m proudly Scottish 🏴 although these days I live in the North-East of England, having spent almost a decade in London. I live in Newcastle upon Tyne with my wife and two children.
- I work at CGI (formerly BJSS) as a Senior Consultant iOS developer. You can find more about my job history in my CV.
- I love running. I’ve ran 5 half marathons and a lot of 5k and 10k runs over the last 10 years or so. And I created an app to set my running goals, it's called Running Track.
- I’ve been an avid reader all my life, and recently started writing fiction, after collecting ideas for years. You can read some short stories here.
Projects
- Building Running Track. Last month I released the first widgets. Now I’m working on adding support for heart rate zones. I’m also making tweaks to the UI, working on custom font and theme support.
- Working on a little colour mixer tool that my kids can play with. As they get older, I love being able to make little fun things for them, and to show them what my job involves.
- Writing short fiction and working on a novel. A very long-term project!
Using
You can find a full list of my computer and running gear on my Setup page.
Reading: Books
- Run For Your Life by William Pullen. A book about mindfulness, and therapy, and how running can help with mental health. A slow read but I’m making a lot of notes.
- I recently finished A Stroke of the Pen, a book of recently rediscovered short stories by Terry Pratchett. It was really cool to find new stories by one of my favourite authors, and it was fun to see the earlier part of his writing career. They're still fun, too.
- The other book I recently finished was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I hadn't seen the movie, I prefer reading books first when a movie is based on a novel. And it was great, a really exciting book that I just didn't want to put down. The way the story is told through the main character's amnesia, and the way it develops in surprising ways is so much fun.
Reading: RSS
Listening: Music
- Blink-182
- Green Day
- Lots of old music, because I need to build up my collection again after mostly cutting out streaming.
Listening: Podcasts
- The Adventure Zone. I've got back into it in a big way recently; the latest story, "Royale", is a great return to form.
- Bring Back V10s. I love hearing stories of F1 from before I watched (around 1999), and behind the scenes of stories I remember.
- The Rest Is History. The depth, mixed with the really engaging and approachable storytelling, is fantastic. I've learned a lot about Nazi Germany, Samurai-era Japan, Admiral Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar, and am currently in the middle of a series on Elizabeth I of England.
Watching
- The Traitors NZ. I love The Traitors as a concept, I've watched the UK, Irish and NZ versions now.
What is this anyway?
A /now page is like a bio, but not so much the kind of thing you’d write on the cover of a book and more what you’d tell a friend you haven’t seen in a while.
A random selection of other /now pages that inspired this one: