Tag: Family

All IT, Financial, IT News, Personal

26th Anniversary of self employment. Financial Services and IT Services.

by Colin BowenLeave a Comment on 26th Anniversary of self employment. Financial Services and IT Services.

family-222128_640Today is the 26th Anniversary of me becoming self employed. on 15th January 1990 I stopped working at a bank and became a self employed financial adviser. I had previously worked in pubs and clubs, and for the local education authority in the “computer lab” at the school where I was still a student. I kept up to date on computers and other IT and continued to support family, friends and colleagues.

mobile-971480_640Around ten years ago I started Colin Bowen IT Services, mainly as a way to fix more computers than I had access to at the time, and to generate a little extra income in my spare time (I didn’t have kids then, so I had spare time). I never intended it to become my main business, but over the years the IT services business has grown quite steadily, and I’m now at a point where I don’t have time to spend on both businesses and spend time with my family.

I’m giving up my financial adviser licences in April to develop my IT and computer services business. People can still come to me for financial services, and I will pass them on to other financial services companies that I have dealt with for years, and those companies will provide the advice.

So, I’d like to thank all my existing clients from both businesses. I hope you will continue to come to me for your IT services and financial services needs, and I’ll help you personally or point you towards trusted third parties who can help you. Of course, I also welcome new customers, so please tell people about me, and get in touch if you need help.

Personal

Life’s too busy – My solution

by Colin Bowen1 Comment on Life’s too busy – My solution

Until our daughter was born 15 months ago our life was busy socialising with friends, going places at weekends and staying away from home often. We thought “it’s been a fun life, but now a new chapter is starting and we won’t be doings the old things, we’ll have new things to do instead”. Well, we do have new things like new friends and new baby-related interests. Thing is, we haven’t stopped doing the old things, so life is even busier now. So busy in fact, that we’re very over-committed.

I’ve been discussing this over commitment with my Blanche (my wife) for months, and recently with George (my financial services business partner). George put it well, I’m Jack of all trades and master of none. This hit home. I’m a perfectionist by nature but I try to live by the motto “good is good enough”. With so many things I currently do, I’m not being ‘good’ at any of them.

So, I’ve given myself yet another new project; to reduce the number of things I do, and do the rest more thoroughly. I’ve made a good start. I’ve been actively avoiding new things online (like Google’s new browser, Chrome), I’ve unsubscribed from nearly a third of my podcasts and from many email newsletters, and will be ignoring some online forums that I’ve previously been active on. I’ve also finished one or two long projects and not replaced them with others. There’s still a long way to go, but I’m heading in the right direction.

So, to blogs. I’m not going to make any more post at my tech blog at http://www.CBits.vox.com (except to explain why). Instead I’ll be posting tech stuff here (hope you don’t mind). Not only does this halve the number of blogs I write, it also means I can cancel a project to move that blog off the horrible Vox platform.

Although I intend to post more regularly here, I’m probably going to concentrate on my own racing rather than F1 for a while. Maybe next season I will post Championship standings after each race to help me (and maybe you) keep track of the simple stuff, but for now I think I’ll resist the temptation to comment here on that’s happening on F1. I’ll keep my F1 comments (if any) short and to the point on http://www.twitter.com./ColinBowen. Don’t know what Twitter is? Watch this video here http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o, sign up, and add me ‘ColinBowen’.

No more F1 spoilers on twitter either. I had occasionally written commentary on F1 practice sessions, and comments on quali and races at http://www.twitter.com./ColinBowen. There is a platform (website) that is ideal for making such commentary (it’s designed for commentary on conferences), but I’m not doing new ‘stuff’ at the moment, so that will have to wait until some time in the future.

Personal

I’m back!

by Colin BowenLeave a Comment on I’m back!
For the last year, my number one priority has been my wife and new baby daughter.  Whatever time has been left has been put into work.  Seven weeks ago my wife returned to work from maternity leave, and four weeks ago my daughter started full time nursery.  She took a week to settle in and since then we have been getting into our new routine.  I’ve been working hard to get the non-urgent backlog at work under control, and almost everything is now ‘in the system’.  Needless to say, I haven’t had time to devote to this website, but I will be posting more frequently from now. 
I have been active on Twitter though.  Twitter is the current ‘big thing’ in the online world, and is best described as micro-blogging.  This website is a blog; I can post (add to the site) via the website itself or by email.  Twitter is a website where people post very short comments (called Tweets) which appear immediately on their page.  You can see me at www.twitter.com/ColinBowen.  If you sign up for free membership, you can ‘follow’ me so that you see my tweets on your own page.
One thing I have tried is doing live Twitter commentary on the F1 practice sessions.  I’ll also be announcing on Twitter when my posts go up on this site.
Anyway, the next couple of days are an important time for Bowen Racing.  More on that later.
It’s good to be back!
Competition Series, Personal

It’s a girl!

by Colin BowenLeave a Comment on It’s a girl!

I’m delighted to say that our baby girl, Imogen, was born a month ago.  Mum and baby are doing very well.
Imogen arrived four weeks early after some lengthy complications, and that’s why I haven’t posted for some time.
Of course, having a new addition to the family means I’ll have less time to post, so I’ll probably post less about F1 but keep the site going for my own racing news (which was the purpose of the site in the first place).  On that topic, I’ve entered the F1 Drivers Challenge again this year.  You can read about my two previous entries in the archives (on the right).  I’m currently waiting for an email to tell me when and when the first round will be.  I’ll keep you up to date whenever I can find time.
Personal

Big news! I’m going to be a Dad!

by Colin Bowen2 Comments on Big news! I’m going to be a Dad!

Our baby is due 2nd August. Blanche (Mum) and baby are doing fine, even though she had a stay in hospital this week for observation.

Two weeks ago, at 29 weeks, Blanche stopped her weekly one-and-a-quarter hour aerobics session in favour of swimming.

We’re doing our parenting classes and I’m learning a lot. But then again, I started from zero parenting knowledge.

I heard of a karting track that allows children to drive from age 4. So, sad as it is, I’ve already put 2nd August 2011 in my diary as a karting day for us.

So say hi to a potential F1 Champion.