100th Post

Well it's taken me some time to reach this landmark, and I'm going to take the time to reflect on what I think my blogging experience has been to date. For perusers of this crap I write, bear with me, I'll try and get normal service resumed shortly. I'm still not sure what I hoped to get out of starting a blog. I'd read a few and enjoyed the vast majority. I guess I started to rediscover my love of words and language. That is probably the main motivation in calling this thing A Man of Numbers. Working with them all day is my job, but then I stumbled and fell in to the world of finance and accounting. Then again, I think all people do. There aren't many people who actually decide aged 9 "I want to be an accountant". I'm sure there are some that do, and good luck to them, but it's hardly a glamorous world. As a child I was pretty artistic and was even asked to draw the Queen's golden coach that she used for her Silver Jubilee, I would have been about 8 at the time. I was always good at English composition and got good grades throughout my schooling. My problem may have stemmed from the ease with which I coped with school. My grades came without the hard work others put in, and to an extent I coasted through the education system, without really questioning where I was heading or why. When it came to choosing "O" Levels, yes I am that old, I was persuaded to leave the arty ones behind and get a good general education, language, sciences, social sciences etc. Ironically whe I came to do my General Studies "A" level, I rediscovered my love of art. But by then it was too little too late and the travelator of my education was taking me off to college. Doing a broad social science degree including Crime and Deviance, Politics, Economics, Statistics, Psychology, Sociology etc etc meant that I enjoyed my college years, but still had no clear direction of where I was heading career wise. Believing the college career advisers that graduates would be in demand when I left I thought the fickle finger of fate would sort me out again. A short spell unemployed soon spelt out the reality to me. So the first job that came along I grasped, and so began the next travelator to get me to where I am now. Don't get me wrong I enjoy what I do, I make a reasonable living, have a great boss and colleagues that I get along with really well. Just sometimes I wonder what might have been had I taken a slightly different route. Anyway, my blogging adventures have led me to the sites of some interesting and thought provoking people. It's opened my eyes again to a certain extent and made me look at things afresh. People like Southern Bird and Lisa have made me realise that I used to find the same joy in words and writing they do. I've even started mucking about with writing again and that's pretty much down to their effect. They do it so much better than me, but it's been about rediscovering things that I enjoyed in the past. Other bloggers, like Lily, Ticharu,G and all the others I've linked up on the right have widened my perspective of life. Blogging has taken the blinkers off and made me look around more, question and analyse things, rather than plod along like I used to.

I've also just realised that there seems to be a definite bias towards female blogs. I'm not sure why, but then I've always got on well with women, as friends at least, getting past the friendship part was always my failing. I must read more male blogs and link them too.

So to all of you I'd like to express my thanks and gratitude for bringing something new to my table. Right, that's enough of the sentimental claptrap, on with the usual crap!