Opening comments

My first stab at a Blog. I hope to make it interesting, if not for other people at least for me. Here's a bit of background, some of which may be briefly mentioned in my profile.

Let's start with a list of the pigeonholes I could squeeze myself into:

• I'm a Zen Buddhist who is associated with the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey
  is the primary centre for this tradition in the UK. However, my local centre for practice and a very important part of my life for about the last 5 years is here.
  
• I practice Tai Chi with this group. I have been going for about a year and a half. I find it helps enormously with my well-being. It also has some meditative qualities which complement my Buddhist practice.
• I am married to the lovely Gingerpig. We were married last year at the Priory mentioned above. If you really want to see some of our wedding photos, take a look here.
• I am a software engineer working for a large networking equpment manufacturer. I develop in Java and C/C++ for anyone interested in that kind of thing.

I don't think I need to say a lot more right now as a Blog is necessarily all about the person creating it, so I will get plenty of opportunity to fill in the many gaps.