Sorry about the recent silence. Been busy trying to tie things up before the year's out. Before I sign off for Christmas I just wanted to wish you all a merry one and to update anybody who's interested on a couple of the things I've talked about of recent.

New Car Arrived

One of the things that has pre-occupied me over the last couple of months has been buying a new car. It arrived last week and we love it. Despite it being a "cheap" car (it's no Audi Q7!) it feels lovely to drive and, although it doesn't have all the mod-cons, it does have a lot more than the 8 year old Audi A4 it's replacing.

Most of the things it has are the things you can live without until you have them -- automatic headlights and wipers, rear parking sensors, bluetooth on the stereo etc. Having had them for a week I don't think I could go back to not having them though!

All in all it's a great car and I have no regrets at all. The only problem is I just want to go for a drive all the time, whereas I normally try and avoid using the car unless it's essential to.

Thanks to those who helped me choose a petrol over a diesel by the way!

ASP.NET

Having played a little with ASP.NET recently I soon realised I just don't have the time to learn it the way I traditionally like to learn things - by diving in and tearing other stuff apart. Instead I have arranged for some one-on-one tuition.

Karen's friend's husband is an ASP.NET developer who also runs his own company here in Nottingham. I went for lunch with him last week and have arranged to buy a day of his time in January. The plan is he comes to sit with me at Rockall HQ and help me get familiar with all the fundamentals of ASP.NET development and deployment. Will let you know how that goes. Paying for training is something of a foreign concept for me, but I'm hoping it will pay in the long run.

I'm excited about 2010 being a new decade and potentially a new start.

Anyway, hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year whatever you're up to. It's cold here. There's snow on the ground, Baileys in the fridge and a log fire burning. It all feels very festive.

I'll leave you with a video of Ben 10 Felix 3 morphing in to "bonfire man".

Here's hoping the "ben den skate bore" he asked Santa for last week on a visit to his grotto gets delivered in time. I don't want to see the monster he'll turn in to if not...