February saw a flurry of tweets about the AHS as it geared up for the convention in London. The World of Warcraft guild I belong to started raiding properly and I moved some parts of my online presence onto a new host.

I went to see Taylor Swift in concert at the MEN before going to see Bradford Park Avenue in the first of my Yorkshire Football Weekends. Kieran finally got his Eurotrip photos online.

I spent most of May in mourning as my beloved Blackpool were relegated from the Premier League but I did have time to tweet about the Yorkshire pub crawl for MC’s stag party.

During the summer I spent time in Tewkesbury with the AHS’s Questival camp before pondering over whether exams were getting easier. I took up live poker again just as I started my new job.

September saw me join the ranks of zombies who own iPhones and making some final tables in the casino. I celebrated my birthday by hitting Wendy House.

I went on a mini-break to Guildford and delivered an address to Leeds A-Soc. I published my first ever post written on my iPhone and then spoke about the BHA to Sheffield Atheists.

I started to wind the year up with doing some charity work and sending an awful lot of tweets.

So, it seems that stuff did happen but mainly on Twitter.

I have been a Blackberry user for almost three years now (I still am) and have long been a fan of the full qwerty keyboard they offer, the enterprise trade security and the rioters’ tool of choice, Blackberry Messenger (BBM).

However, since I got an iPhone as a replacement for my iPod, I have been quite impressed. It feels fast and agile yet manages to accomplish most tasks I throw at it. I still feel that the touchscreen keyboard is less reliable and slower to use than the full tactile keyboard offered by the RIM rivals.having said that the corrective text algorithms on the Apple device are pretty good even when typing gibberish. The lack of flexibility in terms of apps and personalisation is something that Android users take issue with and rightly so, however with me coming from Blackberry there was less of an impact there. In my opinion the lack of freedom is probably almost balanced by security and peace of mind, although as a fan of freedom, the balance is on the right track but is definitely not there yet!

I currently am using a Blackberry Bold as my day to day communications device and primary hand held email platform and the iPhone 4 as my social media and media (including games) device. My Blackberry contract is up in March and I am torn as to whether to replace it with another one or contemplate a standard back up phone.

There have been plenty of ups and downs over the years but my relationship with you, the readers of this site, is now longer than any real life relationship I’ve had so far. Many would say that was a little sad, but I am quite proud. When I kicked off in 2007 I never envisaged I would still be writing stuff on here.

Here is to another 4 years of happy posting. One day I will work out exactly what sort of content fits the site best.

At the moment, all I can say is that The No Man will be making a comeback, but not in the guise many will expect!

For those that don’t know what I’m talking about all will become clear soon enough. The No Man is a moniker that was given to me when I decided that there wasn’t enough democracy at the student union at the University of Leeds as every referendum motion and other political action was left unopposed.

Keep your eyes on the site as I will be posting updates on this until we go for the big announcement!

Having said all that, I do have a couple of articles I want to put up as soon as I have finished them inspired by the Harvard University humanist chaplain, Greg Epstein (author of Good Without God) whom I got to go and see courtesy of the BHA last month. The focus of these articles are similar to a couple of articles I have published in the past on marketing the humanist brand and developing the non-religious “product”.

I also have the article series I promised back in January to post which was delayed for a number of reasons, not least some issues over the leaking of my blog’s existence to the powers that be as well as the break-up of my relationship.

We have been through three site redesigns, several changes of direction and a lot of stuff has been written about a lot of subjects.

I hope you have enjoyed the last three years’ worth of content and I am confident that we will see another three years of content to come!

If you have any ideas or favourite quotes you would liek to see on the site then you can comment at the bottom of this post or send them via email on my contacts page.

Thanks!

I haven’t blogged in a while so i will just bring everyone up to date:

1) I have had to take some time out from my studies to address a few situations, namely my finances. This credit crunch is a real bitch. Sidetracking slightly, why is it a credit crunch exactly? What’s crunching?

2) As a result of my sabbatical from university, I have had to step down from my roles within both the AHS and Leeds Atheist Society. This was a massive disappointment for me as long term readers will be aware I have been involved with both organisation since their inception. I hope to contine playing a role in some sort of capacity, even if just as a regular old member. The main issue being my need to give the leadership room to develop their own style and direction.

3) I have gone full time with my job at O2. I am now a performance adviser and basically I do the same job, with more responsibility for no extra reward. Well I technically get increased job satisfaction and a job i enjoy most of the time, but not exactly going to make a dent in the old finances!

4) I have moved in with Liz, just the two of us, into a nice little cottage in the Seacroft area of Leeds. It is one of the original village buildings from before they added all the council estates that now mean that Seacroft is a suburb of Leeds rather than its own little village.

5) As a result of the above, I have less than I used to to write about on here, hence the need for a wholsesale change in direction.

I would like to start concentrating on developing a few ideas I have for essays and the like on my particular subjects of choice, i.e. management, secularism, atheism and humanism. Some of this blog is going to get dedicated to that and related stuff, like pics, tweets etc. I also think I am going to put some more syndications on here, sharing posts and ideas by other atheist writers, bloggers and speakers.

I have also started thinking recently about whether there is scope to get more involved in actually devleoping the atheist movement into one that makes a real difference. Chris has focussed in on Humanist Action Group and is working towards turning that into a real charity. Whilst I could piggy back on to that, I wonder whether I could ever really make a difference. My areas of interest is with young people, I think it with this group that real difference can be made. I used to do a lot of work with Lancashire County Council and their youth and community section. I was involved in a number of youth participation programmes too. I also wonder whether I could use some of my contacts in parliament to do soemthing with lobbying and maje a difference that way.

Well as you can see, there are a number of directions this blog could take. I don’t know yet which one I fancy, or which one will come to fruition. Maybe inspiration will hit me, or maybe I will try all of them until I get one that works!

I am actually a little shocked about that fact to be honest. I really didn’t think when I posted that very first time that I would still be blogging two years later!

A lot has happened in thos two years, although not as much as maybe I had hoped for really. I am still studying, working for not a huge amount of money, living like a student, still rather hefty in shape but then I have developed a long term relationship, learned so much about so many things through uni and work, formed and run a national representational organisation, set the ground work for a charitable venture (more on that in the future, it’s all a bit hush hush at the moment) and made some great new friends.

Anyway, it’s cake time now!

It was all due to a ridiculous error made by a generally good company which has all now been resolved, although not without a significant tearing of hair and bashing of keyboard.

As you will no doubt have realised whilst reading this new post, that the issue is fully sorted and the wonders of normanralph.com are back!