Personal
Two new activities I’ve taken up the last few months. First, a friend introduced me to the game of squash as I had never played before. I really enjoyed it and am now playing fairly regularly against my cousin, niece and her boyfriend – only about twice each month. Would like to play more often and get better as I’m pretty crap. Worse, I find I hurt for a few days after each game even though I’ve been exercising. It’s a good workout, a fun social activity and a much better game than badminton or tennis. Jenny and...
In September I decided I needed to lose some weight as I hit numbers on the weigh scale that I’ve never seen before! And I was finding that I would get puffed out much too soon doing physical activities. Not good. So I began a new diet and exercise regime. It had to be simple to keep it sustainable and it’s pretty obvious what to do: less bad stuff, more good stuff. For a diet, it means avoid sugar and empty carbs while eating more veg and complex carbs. Essentially a low GI diet. I don’t like systems...
This year, I grew a vegetable garden for the very first time. It was all because we tore down the old shed leaving a bare plot of earth and that got me thinking about getting something back from the land that we own. My scheme started with a dream of huge giant pumpkins. The pumpkins in the UK are always of a small variety and I wanted something really big for Halloween. I did eventually harvest one nice sized pumpkin bit it wasn’t nearly as big as I would liked. Unfortunately, it didn’t get much water when we...
Sadly, my Uncle passed away this last father's day. His health had been suffering for some time but he went peacefully in his sleep. My cousin and girlfriend did a wonderful job of looking after him in the three years after his wife died. He will be missed.
Luckily, weddings have outnumbered funerals this year. Some friends got married in the Spring and my cousin Tanya got married in the Summer. I seem to be at an age where weddings and funerals happen in equal quantities.
Wow, it's December already and my last posting was ten months ago! And 2009 is almost over. I have considered killing this blog but rather than do that I'm going to make an effort to catch up by posting what we did in 2009. I've found a few people actually do read these ramblings, particularly my son! If anything, this blog has become more of a family diary and may turn out to be my only legacy. The kids are now much older than when I started so I'm going use their names: Robyn (R*) and Kieran (K*). ...
Clearly, I haven’t been too inspired to blog for a while. Three months in fact. Life has been a lot more quieter than tramping around the world. I still haven’t finished sorting out all our pictures from the trip.
The major theme for this year is getting serious about our careers. I’ve decided that I’ll stick with Information Technology. Specifically, I’m back to writing software and planning to have a go at freelance contracting. Jenny is exploring her options to combine her interest in food with education.
I’m also spending a lot of time in managing our investment portfolio and learning how to...
The kids started school last Thursday. K* started Year 5 back in his old school. For R*, it’s Year 8 after missing a whole year. More significantly, it was her first day at high school – a major milestone. She also has to wear a uniform.
Tags: Family
I had a very annoying verruca (plantar wart) on my foot for several months. Never had one before. I ignored it while travelling and when I got home tried to treat it with with salicylic acid. It didn't help much and made it more painful. My doctor told me that there wasn't really any cure beyond the body healing itself in its own sweet time. My body was was definitely procrastinating.
So, along with using salicylic acid to remove the dead skin, I started dousing it with 100% pure tea tree oil once a day. Presto! The verucca soon abated and...
My son was shown three sex education videos at school last week. He’s in Year 4. One of them included full cross-section animation of intercourse. If you ask me, he’s a bit young for that. I didn’t get a sex education talk until Year 7 and it certainly wasn’t animated!
Jenny watched a preview to check the content. I talked to him about the video both the evening before he saw it and the evening afterwards. Basically, he wasn’t much fussed about it and wasn’t very interested. I think he got the general idea already from watching animal nature programmes and...
Jenny spent ages shopping for a BBQ and finally settled on the BeefEater Discovery Classic as the best choice. It’s a proper Aussie one. She’s now an expert so you can ask her for advice. The day it arrived, I dutifully assembled it and it proceeded to start raining. Doh! The picture is of our first test run later that day.
Tonight we’re catching a red-eye flight to China. Our first stop is Xi’an. Then we fly to Chengdu in Sichuan for a short local tour but we have about ten days to do whatever we want. Not sure yet whether we’ll go south or east or we could even try going to Tibet. We’re going to make it up as we go. By April 6th we have to be in Beijing in order to catch our flight to Osaka. We’re hoping to be in Kyoto in time to see the cherry blossoms but according to current predictions, we’re going to...
We got back from Australia on Feb 3rd and spent the month chilling out in Malaysia. We celebrated Chinese New Year and also K*’s 9th birthday. For a treat we took K* and several family members indoor rock climbing at Camp 5. Great facility. We’ve also been kite flying and a done few other local trips.
During the month we have also concentrated on sorting out the remaining few months we have in Asia before we return to the UK. All this travel takes a lot of research and planning. Australia took us to the end of our plans and bookings....
We're now in Kuala Lumpur living at my in-laws. This is going to be our home away from home for the next seven months. Yep, SEVEN months. It's a long time eating just rice and noodles. As you would expect, it's hot and sunny and dreary England is a long way away. No winter for us this year!
Today is also my daughters' birthday. She's turned 12 and is more like a young adult every day. It's a bit hard celebrating birthdays when you're travelling. We gave her a Calvin Klein Swiss-made watch that she picked out for herself yesterday and later this...
So we learned a few things doing this last trip.
Our kids, at this age, do not do scenery. I doubt many kids care about scenery. We spent a bit too much time driving around beautiful places and would plan for less of it next time. Driving with bored kids is never fun . Audio books are the best way we know to pass the time in the car.
It's better to book accommodation in advance. While booking at the last minute offers a lot of flexibility, it also wastes a lot of time and finding room for a family of four is harder...
There sure are a lot of choices for creating an online presence nowadays. I often try new places when I hear of them; I've tried Second Life, MySpace and MSN Live Spaces but dumped them.
This blog still my remains my main online website. However, you can also find me on Facebook and Flickr.
I've found Facebook quite a fun place to hang out. It hits a sweet spot between blogging, email, chat and photo sharing by providing a context for interacting with friends online. Clever. And it provides an open platform for simple applications that encourage interactions. Very clever. And it's a great...
I'm very sad to say that I sold my Porsche. It was driven away last Wednesday leaving a big empty space in my driveway.
It was harder than I thought to let it go and teetered on calling off the sale. But I had to be practical about it. The problem is that with us travelling, I wouldn't be using it for a 10 months and would have had to put it into storage for at least 7 of those months. Now, storage isn't good for a car anway but it costs £30 per week if you want them to start the engine...
Welcome to my new weblog skin. It marks the start of our travels as next week we head off to Canada to visit family and friends in Victoria and Vancouver. Our itinerary is also more or less settled for the rest of year and is still a bit hazy for the first half of 2008. Not that we're completely ready. Far from it! There's just so much stuff to do when you decide to go travelling for a year.
I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow listing of our plans but will try to blog more frequently and tell you...
It was Father's Day today and the kids took me out for dinner. Yep, that's a first! The kids decided to split the bill between themselves and pay using their own hard-earned money. Mom offered to pick up a share of the bill too. It's not the amount that counts but that they recognize that they have a role in contributing in the family. This is good.Tags: Family
Last Sunday we had the almost bizarre experience of being home alone without any kids.
K* spent the weekend camping with the cub scouts. It was his first big trip away from home. Lots of pictures on the website. Unfortunately, the weather turned bad and some of their tents blew down Sunday night! Lots of rain but he enjoyed it and still likes camping.
R* was away for four days hiking the Brecon Beacons in Wales as part of a school trip. She didn't say much about it but she seemed to have enjoyed herself.
So we had Sunday free to ourselves! For...
That same weekend we did the bluebell walk, we had a major family first - a family bike ride!
During March and April, I finally taught K* how to ride a bicycle. The trick I found was to first get him riding a regular push scooter to get the idea of keeping one's balance. It didn't take too long from that for him to transfer the idea to balancing on a bike. The main struggle was getting K* to *want* to ride a bike. He's been very, very reluctant which has always baffled me. I finally bribed him with a brand new...
It's been a right horrible day.
Early this morning, just after midnight, our cat , Pixel, sauntered back from his usual night prowl. I went to wipe his paws since it was wet out and quickly realised his face and paws were covered in blood. That wasn't a saunter; it was a crawl. He was a mess and was wheezing out his breath. He was in shock. Oh my god.
Panic ensued. We tried to wipe him up and make him comfortable but his jaw, teeth and tongue were hanging out at different angles. I called the emergency vet but would have to wait...
Sadly, the day came last Tuesday when K* was prescribed glasses. Last week, the teacher had to move him to the front of the class because he complained he couldn't read the whiteboard.
Both Jenny and I wear glasses so we knew it was very likely at least one or both of our kids would also need glasses. Luckily, R* seems to have escaped so far but I didn't get my first pair until I was about 14. There's still time.
Glasses are a hassle and I don't think you can ever say glasses improve your looks. It's a shame. He's taken it quite...
Well I'm back into doing workouts and I've been managing to do it every other day for the last two weeks. No, it's not a New Years Resolution; it's fear. I've committed to going skiing with my mates in March. The less you exercise before skiing, the more it's gonna hurt! It's great motivation.
I'm not going to the gym. I really don't like the atmosphere of a gym and I hate the time overhead and expense of going there. I may go later on as I do really like the various weight machines that allow you to isolate specific muscle...
Jenny and I have decided to pull the kids out of school and take them travelling for a year. We leave this summer.
We've toyed with this possibility for many years. The idea is that there's more to an education than classroom learning. Our hope is that travel will challenge them and provide new experiences which help them grow and learn about the world. That's the theory. It's also just plain fun and a way to enjoy having the kids before they grow up and don't want to hang about with Mom and Dad anymore.
This does mean that we have to...
Welcome to another year on my blog. Looking back, I've obviously been slowing down with the number of posts I make. I've been sticking more and more to travels and family stuff. It's a momentum thing really. I also don't want to keep whinging on about all the stuff that's wrong in the world. Anyway, it's 2007 and I expect to have a lot to blog this year!
Meanwhile, I've recently upgraded to Subtext 1.9.3 which has given me more antispam tools so commenting on all my posts is open again.
As I started doing last year, I've forgone sending Christmas cards. Instead I'm using email and the phone to send my wishes and created a website to share some of our better family photo's. The savings go to charity.
Our chosen charity this year is Room To Read - started by an ex-Microsoft employee after he discovered a lack of books at a school in Nepal. Since 2000, the charity has established over 3000 libraries in the developing world. They also publish local language children's books, build schools and provide long-term scholarships to girls. It's an excellent cause in my books (haha)...
R* turned eleven last month. Here's a picture of her with her friends at her laserquest party. K* scored the highest number of hits by camping in a corner and shooting everyone. Jenny played one of the games as its not everyday you get to shoot children!
I'm sure, like every other parent, when a birthday comes along you also reflect at how much and how fast your child is growing up. Some of her friends are almost as tall as Jenny and they're growing lumpy bits! Woah. At least they all still seem to think kissing is disgusting despite rumours...
It was a sad September. My Aunt who had been suffering with lymphoma for almost ten years passed away. She was a lovely woman whom we'll badly miss.
But I can share a funny story among the sadness. The night before the funeral, Jenny hung her clothes on the closet door handle ready for the morning rush to get out of the house and into London. The clothes were brand new and very specially chosen for this most solemn of occasions.
We woke up to discover the most horrendous crime. The cat had taken it upon himself to bless said clothes with a generous...
Almost caught up but I've run out of time. I'm off to Berlin this weekend with a couple of mates - the guys I usually go skiing with. I've still got to tell you about sailing to the Channel Islands and I also went to the Nottinghill Carnival last Monday.
My flight with easyJet leaves at 6:30am which means I'm leaving the house at 3am! Arrgghh.
Sorry for the lack of posts. We've been doing stuff but I haven't got around to blogging about it. I'll have to do a big catch-up later. Right now Jenny is in Malaysia with the kids and tomorrow I'm off to sail around the Channel Islands for a week. Tell you about it when I get back.
So this has been our latest project - well, Jenny's project. I'm just the forced labour. In our never-ending search for space, she wants to clear out the garage for her stuff by putting the stuff that's there into this new shed. It's about three times the size of our old shed.
If you're interested, it's a 10'x10' "Waltons Groundsman Workshop" from Garden Buildings Direct. Quality-wise, it's so-so but it was pretty cheap. The panels are flimsy. I've warned the children not to play "Three Little Pigs" inside since they might blow it down. We need to cover the floor with plywood to...
I haven't been posting lately but I have been working on this blog.
I've consolidated my blog databases and migrated both blogs I write to
a new blogging platform called Subtext. Over the next couple of months, I'll be changing and tweaking the skin (UI).
If you notice any strange displays or behaviour, please let me know
Our cat likes chewing on cables and it's becoming a bit of a problem. There's alot of cables around our house. So far, he's chewed through:
one ethernet backbone disrupting the home network
two xbox controllers
one Nokia phone charger
the left channel of a cheap audio interconnect
one very expensive audiophile-grade audio interconnect
That last one was really, really annoying. I've become reaquainted with my soldering iron fixing all this stuff. Now when something doesn't work, the first suspect is the cat.
The surprising thing is that he hasn't chewed through a power cord yet. I hope he does! That will teach him a lesson. Although it would be...
Nice to see the daffodils coming up in our back garden. I always find February and March a rather depressing time of the year. After Chinese New Year, the next thing to anticipate is Spring and the daffs are the first sign of it.
Got my tax return done and submitted online one hour before the deadline. I hate paperwork. Starting to think about what to do this year as we have no further holidays or events planned after this month.
We're off to Canada for the Christmas holidays visiting friends and family in Victoria and Vancouver. I'll be back after New Years but should still find time to blog while we're away. The highlight of the trip will be taking the children skiing for five days up at Mt Washington. Look for us on the snowcam! :-)
Jenny did it! She graduated yesterday from the Tante Marie School of Cookery with a Cordon Bleu diploma. She even got a pass with distinction! All that hard work paid off and hence the big, big smile. May I introduce to you, Chef Jenny!
Arrgghh! The kids and I are down with food poisoning. Been sick for two days; what a pain. We believe it was some chicken I bought last Monday. Definitely fowl play!
My daughter recently turned 10. Her big present was a mobile phone I bought second-hand off ebay (a Nokia 6100). Needless to say, she's been over the moon having acquired such a "grown-up" device. I'm sure it gives her bragging rights with some of her friends but she's not allowed to take it to school - school rules.
Honestly I'm not a big fan of raising techno-kids despite being a geek myself. I've refused to buy any of the handheld gaming platforms no matter how cool they are. The tamagotchi's were a mistake but thankfully their batteries have died. There are better things...
We're finally back to a regular schedule for the rest of term. Kids are in school and all their activities and transport sorted out. K* has piano lessons, beavers, swimming and kindermusik. He's also signed up for football although I still have to check with the hospital whether that's ok with his leg still mending. R* has school play, cornet lessons and swimming. She's quit brownies because it's just too girlie and is currently deciding between either St. John's Ambulance Cadets or Sea Cadets.
Jenny started back full-time at the Tante Marie cooking school last Wednesday. It will keep her very...
Last Friday we brought home our new kitten. He's a moggy we got for free from R*'s friend. He was born on July 9th which makes him 9 weeks old.
I've always wanted a cat and with R*'s gerbils gone it seemed like an obvious next pet for the family. R* would much rather have a dog and as much as we all like dogs, neither Jenny or I want to commit to daily dog walks. Cats are just so much easier to look after. Our only concern is whether K* will turn out to be allergic to him; it may...
Boy it sure is nice to get home after a few weeks away! All-in-all, we had a good trip. Yes, Provence is pretty although it would be much better at the right time of year - late June/early July. Jenny loved the markets. I thought the Roman ruins were outstanding. The campsite further south near Perpignan was less than thrilling but more fun for the kids. It was less culture; more holiday suburbia.
Here's a picture of Jenny and I after racing some gokarts. It was a heap of fun. It was a first time for Jenny so she wasn't very...
K* had his leg cast removed yesterday. We missed our appointment at the clinic due to the flight delay but Jenny waited around with K* at the hospital and they eventually found time to remove it. K* is still hopping about on one leg as he doesn't trust using his healed leg yet. He managed getting around the yacht just brilliantly this last week.
While reading about casts I discovered some people have a fetish for them. Check out Cast Fetish. Whatever floats your boat!
Or 101010 in binary.
Of course, forty two will forever be known as the answer to "life, the universe and everything" (Douglas Adams). But today, it happens to be the age I'm turning.
It's not as bad as turning forty. By now, I've accepted that youth has been spent and I have to live on credit. And I'll spend all the credit I can get before the great banker in the sky calls in the loan...
Yesterday was the last day of school for the kids. Here in the UK children get out much later than in North America but they get longer holidays at Easter. All the kids activities have ended as well. Yeeehaaa! No more school runs, taxi runs and hanging around waiting for lessons to end!! I'm free!!!! ....for six weeks at any rate.
I'm off for a few days to Barcelona with some mates next week, then it's to Turkey for a week of sailing and then some friends from Canada are coming over and we're off to the South of France for...
K* broke his leg today.
We were at a friend's house and he, R* and another friend were bouncing on a trampoline. Suddenly K* crumpled and howled in pain. The pain wouldn't subside and he refused to stretch his leg so eventually we decided to take him to the hospital.
At this point, I must say I'm rather annoyed that I had to carry K* from waiting room to waiting room and try to keep a six-year-old comfortable in my arms. He was whimpering in pain all the time with the jostling. There should have been a trolley or a temporary bed...
We've had a number of emails checking to see whether we're ok so I just want to let everyone know we're fine. Thanks for the concern. Everyone we know is fine too but I'm horrified to say I heard a father of one of the children at a local school was killed.
The bombing was tragic and pointless if you ask me. What was it meant to achieve?
R*'s pet gerbil Tom died this morning. He was a good five years old and succumbed to a nasty growth on his tummy. I broke the sad news to R* when I picked her up from school and we went home and buried him in the garden next to his brother Tim. She had a good cry. Now Tim and Tom are just two lollipop crosses in the flower bed.
The gerbils were great as a first pet. Soon she'll want another pet but I'm loath to have something in a cage again. I just don't like seeing an animal living...
This blog has been a bit quiet. I've got a house full of guests and the kids are off on half term. While I've got lots to blog about, I haven't found much time to write it up. Stay tuned.
The children's music lessons finally seem to be paying off. Yesterday, both kids worked out the notes to play "Once A Man Fell In A Well" and then played the song together as a piano/cornet duet! No prompting; they just did it. Put a big smile on my face.
Meanwhile, R* is learning to play "God Save The Queen". Getting tired of jumping up to attention all the time. :-)
I've decided to vote for the Liberal Democrats. It's mostly through a process of elimination. Labour - no. Conservatives - no. Greens not an effective option at this point. My constituency is only a race between Lib Dems and Conservatives so I fall on the side of the Lib Dems. Time to go mark my ballot.
I predict that the voter turn out will be quite poor but that Labour will win but with only a small majority. Opposition parties will be much stronger. Contention between Blair and Brown will increase unless Blair goes within a year.
There's some guy running around out there using our address to take out insurance on his mobile phone. I don't understand why someone would do this since we just get the policy mail and then notify the company that he doesn't live here. I hope it's not a scam since it could plunge our credit rating. Has this happened to anyone else?
Today marks two years since my last day of employment. It doesn't feel like two years. Time still rushes by even when one isn't caught up in a career.
I sometimes feel a little guilty that I haven't accomplished a whole lot in two years. Then I remind myself that the whole make-something-of-yourself, self-improvement, get-ahead, consume-more mindset is an ingrained product of middle class rat race culture. My subscription to that has pretty much run out. How should one measure self-worth?
I haven't been inspired to take a dramatic leap into a new career. I was half hoping something inspirational would just happen. Nope!...
Jenny started school today. Here's a picture of her in her uniform.
A couple of days ago some kids passing our house found this friendly squirrel running all over the road. The kids caught him (or maybe the squirrel just wouldn't get off them) and they gave him to me since I was outside at the time. He really is very friendly. Climbs all over you. Doesn't bite. Not skittish and quite docile. Also pretty clumsy and not very well balanced. I figure he must be about three months old.
We thought he might have suffered a fall so we kept him inside in a box and fed him for a couple of...
Jenny and I arrived at a pub this afternoon for a nice quiet lunch only to discover smoke billowing from the engine of my car. My first reaction was "engine fire!" but it eventually turned out to be on oil leak. The oil was burning when it dripped on the muffler. In fact with the engine running, oil would gush out and a 993 has a lot of oil! I'm sorry to say it got all over the pub car park. Luckily the breakdown service didn't take long to come but they quickly gave up and called for a recovery truck.
I spent...
Today was D-Day for Jenny. Decision Time. Last day to apply. She's chosen to embark on a Cordon Bleu Intensive Diploma. She's not sure where she'll go with it but it's a great way to furthering her culinary skills. The course starts April 18th and is structured as two 10 week terms. She'll finish this November.
The irony is that with her out of the house from 8 to 6 every day, I'll be doing a lot more cooking. I wonder how long it will take the kids to get tired of spaghetti bolognaise? Baked beans on toast?
I'm currently selling my first item ever on ebay. Kind of exciting to see the bidding going up. It's just an old soundcard that I wasn't using and recently realized it was still worth quite a bit. I'm looking around the house for other things to auction off. And then I can buy more stuff from ebay!
I wrote my RYA Day Skipper navigation theory exam last week. This last Tuesday, I got my certificate confirming that I had passed. Yaayy! The class went to the pub to celebrate. It was really pretty easy and I wish the course had been much more condensed. So now I just need to complete a five day Day Skipper Practical course and we'll be able to go on a sailing holiday. I've been eyeing doing the course in Gibraltar. It sounds much more interesting than the Solent, the wind is reliable and it's warmer.
As previously posted, I started going to the gym several weeks ago. In a minor fit of madness, I committed to a gym membership just before my ski trip. They had a special promotion where you buy a three month membership and they give you four months with no joining fee (this is just at the local community centre). So, for this membership to be more cost effective than going on a pay-as-you-go casual basis, I have to make it the the gym 18 times by the end of May.
So, dear reader, you can be my gym buddy and keep...
K* was vested in a Beaver colony last week. That is, he's not living in the local river but he joined the Beavers/Cubs/Scouts variety. He really looks forward to the weekly meeting. They keep the emphasis on having fun so the meetings are rather loud and chaotic. I suspect he also like the rituals and "clubiness" of it.
I know some people don't approve of the paramilitary style of these organisations but I obviously disagree. I went through cubs and scounts myself. There's many commendable values and skills that they try to teach and they provide a strong community spirit.
K* turned six last week. We had his birthday party at the Bracknell Look Out Discovery Centre last weekend and Jenny made one of her fantastic birthday cakes.
I recently discovered that I completely missed out on the Cream reunion. Ahhh!!! Eric Clapton is playing with the original members of Cream for four gigs at the Royal Albert Hall. All the tickets sold out a couple of weeks ago but I'm hunting around for some.
Meanwhile I started looking around at who else was coming to the Royal Albert Hall and discovered that Oscar Peterson is performing on July 1st. I've bought two tickets. Anyone else interested?
I'm also planning to go see the Australian Pink Floyd show again this April. They're a great tribute band and the tickets are...
R* discovered Tim's still little white body in the corner of his cage tonight. His head was splattered with blood and his eye was missing. Gruesome. She was very, very upset so I quickly took away the evidence and cleaned up the scene of the crime.
Gerbil murder is a messy business.
There's only one suspect. His brother Tom. But he's showing no sign of remorse whatsoever. Strange given that they were best mates for three years and always slept in a ball together. However we do suspect there has been some previous domestic violence. We've found Tim bleeding before but thought it might have...
I hurt. I really hurt.
I've decided to join a couple of friends skiing in the Pyrenees next month. With only three weeks to get my legs somewhat prepared for the task, I popped down to the gym for the first time in a year. My inner thigh muscles certainly did not appreciate me waking them from their slumber and have made their inadequacy very apparent. It's the same muscles that I didn't know existed until I attempted horse riding.
But as soon as I stop walking like a geriatric cowboy, I gotta get back to the gym. Here's an interesting article on which muscles you...
I mentioned last year that I often get a bit melancholy as one year passes away and a new one starts. It's been no different this year and made particularyly poignant reflecting on the disaster in Asia. We spent a quiet New Years Eve at home. I don't have any real concrete plans for 2005 besides doing some sailing. No resolutions. My mother-in-law is over for a visit while Jenny under goes some elective surgery. It will take a few months for Jenny to fully recover.
Sometimes I'm not too sure what to make of Christmas. I'm a non-practising Catholic meaning once my parents couldn't make me go to church, I stopped going. Actually, I wouldn't even claim to be Christian. I'm fairly cynical about institutional religions of any kind. However, we still celebrate Christmas. It would seem mean not to. We try to make sure the kids understand we're celebrating the birth of Jesus and not the coming of Santa Claus. I might not be very convincing though. We also try to emphasize charity and downplay consumerism but that message also tends to get drowned in...
Yesterday, I had my tenth evening of the RYA Day Skipper Theory course I'm taking at a local college. Half way through; only ten more lessons to go. It's a rather frustrating course. The instructor is a very old but experienced chap who knows his stuff but his teaching is rather unstructured; he doesn't explain things very well and he tends to ramble on. But the worse bit is how slow we cover the material. It reminds me how thoroughly boring high school was, endlessly hearing the same material over and over again.
The material isn't difficult. Boils down to vector...
We celebrated R*'s birthday yesterday with a party for her and fourteen girls at a local bowling alley. It was a simple affair with them dividing into three groups and richocheting bowling balls for 45 minutes. Good thing there are guards which prevent the ball from going in the gutter! This was followed by 30 minutes in a party room for food and the birthday cake Jenny made.
R* was thrilled that her best friend gave her a Tamagotchi which is the big craze at her school at the moment. Every kid seems to have one in their pocket. I thought...
It's coming up to R*'s 9th birthday and she's presented the following wish list to us:
laptop, game boy advanced, portable cd player, geometry set, calculator, money safe, action man, harry potter poster, wand, gallions, knuts, sikles, sewing book, dog (multy po), joey yu-gi-oh deck, £50, suitcase trunk, small gold in-out box, dip pen and ink, sweet maker, very strong magnets, 2 girl gerbils, £100 and a very happy family
Unfortunately, we will be on holiday on her birthday but she's having a big bowling party for all the girls in her class when we get back.
Jenny has been making progress with her career in the culinary world. Today she taught her first Malaysian Cookery workshop to five paying students. She covered Malaysian chicken curry, beef rendang, chicken satay, nasi lemak and accompaniments. It went very well and she really enjoyed teaching it.
She's also been baking every week and selling it through the local Women's Institute as a way of perfecting her recipes. She's managed to produce all kinds of cakes and goodies that people with food sensitivities can eat. It's got to the point where she's getting advanced orders for them.
I'm still trying to convince her...
Over the last couple of weeks, I had my final three motorcycle lessons and today I went for my test in Reading. I was a bit nervous but not too jittery.
I passed!
Whew! Quite a relief since if I had failed, I would have had to wait until mid November for a retest. As it was, the day was rather chilly with some rain. The examiner, Mark, drove around behind me in a car for about 45 minutes giving me directions over a one way radio. I was particularly nervous doing the U turn in the middle of a narrow sloping...
Yesterday, I taught the kids how to play conkers. There's a horse chestnut tree at R*'s school so the kids there collect them but they don't know how to play conkers so I figured I would teach her this most English of games. As a kid, I had my five seconds of fame playing in a conker competition with the shattering of my conker being broadcast on local TV news. My opponent went on to win the competition with a very seasoned seven year old indestructable conker.
On Sunday, we trooped down to Windsor Great Park and collected a bag of...
Got back safe and sound from our road trip to Germany yesterday. Had a great time and I'll try and get a travelogue written up and posted this week. Driving the Autobahn was a real highlight for me. Here's a picture of my speedometer showing us hitting 145 mph as we got near to Munich.
I have a new found respect for German cars; they all seem to be built for driving at speeds like these!
My left arm still hurts a bit after Jenny and I got our combined Hepatitis-A and Typhoid vaccination this morning. If you want to travel, you need to consider the health risks so in preparing for our holiday to Egypt next month, I spent some time reading the WHO's International Travel and Health website. Quite interesting - especially the world disease maps.
Egypt doesn't require any vaccinations but we decided the prudent ones to have covered in our family are Polio, Tetanus/Diptheria and Hepatitis A. Luckily malaria is almost non-existent in Egypt. It's the disease responsible for the highest death rate among travellers....
Jenny is away for five days on a residential cookery workshop at The Cordon Vert School in Manchester - learning how to kill vegetables and skin them. Alright, she's doing the Foundation Workshop which aims to "give students a thorough knowledge of a vegetarian diet". She's very excited about having this break and attending her first professional cookery workshop.
No, we're not planning on becoming vegetarians but we'd be happy to eat more vegetables if the dishes were more interesting. I think vegetarianism is highly admirable and as this BBC article explains, we should all eat less meat.
Meanwhile I'm home alone with the kids learning to...
Had my fifth motorcycle lesson today and it was my second time riding a 500cc bike. It's a big step up from the 125cc bikes. Lots of power on tap at all speeds. Scary. Small movements of your wrist can jolt you about quite a bit and you've got to be ready for it. I've learned to slip the clutch more at low speeds to keep control. There's no fairing or windshield so at 60 mph, you really feel the wind holding you up. Of course, going fast in a straight line is fine but we're now starting to take...
K* started school today. Year One. He wasn't worred or fussed by it. His best friend is in the same class so that helps a lot. He's not the kind of boy that worries or fusses anyway; he just gets on with it. He even got awarded a sticker by the teacher for stopping an exercise when he was supposed to stop and then waiting quietly. He thrives on rules and just complies with them - such an easy kid.
These milestones can pass uncelebrated when they happen so easily. We now make a effort to drink a toast at dinner to recognise...
The kids have been spending every morning this week at a Stagecoach holiday workshop. The format of each day was one hour dance, one hour singing and one hour theatre. Today, as a finale, they performed a short play - Little Red Hen.
We weren't sure how they would take to it since both of them shy away from dressing up and performing but it went down well. You can tell because they got up early in the morning and got ready all by themselves without any yelling from either of us. It also didn't take any pushing from us for...
I'm now back onto my motorcycle lessons. Had my first two lessons this week after passing my CBT last month. Each lessons consists of a quick warm up on a private circuit and then onto the public roads wired up with a radio so you can hear directions from the instructor.
The first lesson was a private lesson. It was raining and I felt a bit tense but didn't feel I did too badly until at the end of the lesson the instructor told me I was too erratic and unpredictable and an accident waiting to happen. Gulp. I used the...
There's a big picture of R* in last weeks local weekly newspaper. We were approached by a photographer at the WOMAD festival to take a picture of her holding up a colourful kite. R*'s very pleased with it. We've also explained to her about modelling and she seems keen on the idea now that she knows you can earn money that way. She's even willing to wear a dress!
Ughh. Turned 41 today. It's not too depressing but I'd rather ignore it all the same.
Friends are having our kids for two days and Jenny and I are heading down to Weymouth to do some diving and earn our PADI Advanced Open Water certification. Feeling a bit nervous as I'm expecting the water to be quite cold and murky and we're diving to wrecks. However, the dive shop claims the sea is a balmy 18 degrees....
I've passed my Compulsory Basic Training and my Theory Test. Just got my Practical Test to do!
I've always wanted to ride a motorcycle ever since first riding as a teenager. While 18 and backpacking in Nepal, my friends and I managed to rent motorcycles in Katmandu and ride around the countryside. That was the first time I'd ever ridden and it was great fun. Now I'm finally getting around to getting a license.
Last Monday I did the Compulsory Basic Training. It's a full day being taught the basics of motorcycle handling. There were four of us on the day and...
Exactly ten years ago today, we stepped off a plane only planning to stay in the UK for two years. We often evaluate whether we're living in the right place and, funny enough, it still seems right to stay.
There's many reasons why we stay. Each one isn't enough in it's own right but they add up to a lot of inertia that keeps us here. I'm not going to try and explain them all. When asked, the easiest explanation is that we just love the variety of things there are to do in the UK. It's a very small country crammed with 60...
Jenny finished her sailing course this weekend and receive her Level Two RYA Dinghy Sailing certificate. She had a lot of fun with it except for one day when the wind was a bit strong and she capsized a few too many times. One girl in the class even got knocked completely unconscious by a swinging boom. Despite the thrill of the sails catching the wind, Jenny claims that she'll only be a fair weather sailor.
We also celebrated K* winning an art competition at the school fair. He very diligently decorated a plate for days and days. It was great...
R* has decided she wants to learn to play the cornet. We went to an instrument hands-on evening yesterday where she also tried out a flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, trombone, trumpet, french horn, violin, cello, guitar and drums. Before arriving, she was quite set on the violin but I think that's because most of her friends are learning it. She was pretty good at producing a note on anything she tried. She did very well with the flute and particularly liked the oboe.
But when she got to the cornet, her mind was quickly made up despite my attempts to...
Today's my anniversary of quitting work and taking time off. The time has gone quickly and I haven't got as much done as I thought I might. Occasionally I get asked whether I'm bored or tired of not working. Nope! Not yet! It's true I've never spent so much time just by myself. The main thing I miss about work is the banter and general socialising with colleagues. It took several months to stop feeling like I should have a nine to five job and for the longest time, it felt very strange to go somewhere in the middle of a...
Today was K*'s first day at school. He's started in a reception class at a nearby Infant School. Thankfully he doesn't seem to have any anxieties over it. It's probably helped that we've been building and preparing him for this for quite some time and it's the same school that he used to see his sister go to. So the place was familiar. He says he likes his teacher and he's made new friends. He seems proud of his new school uniform too.
This is a big milestone for us as parents. Both kids in school! The kids are growing up! And...
And she got paid for it! Whoo Hoo!!
Some time back, I mentioned that I roped Jenny into offering Oriental Cooking Classes. Well she never got enough students but that ad in the paper did pay off. She got a cold call a few months ago from someone representing a local women's group called "Circle Of Friends". She got invited to their meeting and after describing her cooking class idea, the committee members decided to try Jenny out. So tonight she demonstrated cooking a Malaysian dinner for six women who then enjoyed the meal.
It went pretty well although she felt there...
R* completed her sixth one hour snorkeling lesson today at a local pool and received her PADI Discover Snorkeling certificate. She really enjoyed it and had no qualms with diving and breathing through the snorkel. However, I had to insist that she did not wear her fins in the bathtub in the evenings! Hopefully we'll find an interesting place for her to use this new skill in the not too distant future.
Well maybe "interviewed" is overstating it. Had a telephone call from a BBC researcher. The World Service is putting together a radio programme on the Information Society so they wanted to talk to people that have an Internet presence - bloggers in particular. So we had an interesting chat about the whys and hows of blogging and why I got into it. I could ramble for ages about it but the questioning was very to the point. No doubt an important trait of a good researcher.
There's no date set for when the programme will air. If I find out, I'll...
Jenny had a very successful day cooking lunch for sixteen elderly people. She's volunteered as a cook for the Age Concern charity and today was her initial debut. Her Irish Stew was highly praised although the boiled cabbage didn't get a lot of attention. I know she really enjoyed the challenge. You also have to produce the meal for about £1 per person and that includes dessert. Now that's really difficult!
Had our third poker night last week. By the end of the night, I was, *sob*, down 30%. That's £3.
I've even been reading a book called "Winning Low Limit Hold'em" by Lee Jones but it didn't help me a whole lot. The game was loose and I made plenty of mistakes getting impatient waiting for a good deal. I'm not giving up yet. It needs quite a bit of practice to get this right especially trying to assess the odds of getting the cards you needs verses the pot odds. There's a surprising amount of mental calculations that go into the game.
R* was in bed. I came into her room after putting K* to bed.
R*: Where is mummy going?Me: What? She's downstairs.R*: I don't think so. I bet she isn't.Me: Ok, bet £10 she is.R*: Umm. I bet £5M: All right, £5
She gets up and we go downstairs. Sure enough, Jenny isn't at home and R* is giggling away. She wants her winnings deposited in her account. When Jenny comes home, I learn that R* actually waved good-bye to her as she left. I'm going to stop teaching an eight year old about betting!
We got a letter from Legoland a couple of weeks ago annoucing their opening and a new ride called the Jungle Roller Coaster. K* has been talking about it ever since. He couldn't wait to see this new roller coaster. It opened last Friday but it's was pouring with rain so we didn't go. He was hugely disappointed. So today we went and the only thing on his mind was to see the new Jungle Rollacoaster.
We finally got there but he refused to go on any roller coaster what-so-ever. We finally dragged him onto the smallest one but that was...
R* had a recital at the Berkshire Youth's Musicians Trust playing to a small audience of other parents with children in the Kindermusik programme. She did well. Practiced her recorder part all last week and performed it well when the time came. Phew! She's beginning to read music and play in a small ensemble. She hasn't started an instrument beyond recorder but she might be ready now. Hopefully this little success has boosted her interest in sticking with it.
Another R* question.
"So why is sh*t a swear word but poo isn't?"
Ummmm.....
Crufts, the world's biggest dog show, has been broadcast on TV for the last three days. We've been letting R* watch the hour long broadcast each night. She would absolutely *love* a dog and it's reinvigorated her campaign to get one. It all boils down to who is going to look after the dog and take it for walks and it just ain't gonna be me. And it can't be R*. Personally, I'm all for getting a cat!
It's official. I'm now playing Low Limit Texas Hold'em once a month. We played last night and I'm pleased to report I came away with more than I started with. We've modified the house rules so that you just buy £10 worth of chips and at the end of the game, cash your chips in. I made £1.95. Coffee money! Then again, that's a 20% return which is far better than my other investments lately. It certanly helped spending a lttle time studying the strategy and tactics for the game - especially the starting hands.
R* and K* have always slept in the same room together all their lives - until tonight. We moved R* into her own room today after talking about for several months. She says it feels very strange and she's not very sure about it. K* seems ok albeit concerned R* might have the better room even though it's half the size. We think it's about the right time as R* needs space she can call her own rather than hiding everything around her bed like a rats nest. Their sleeping patterns are also different. One of the next projects is decorating and...
R* left the following note by her unfinished dinner
I have not finisded my dinner Do Not eat is I have Spat on it. R. W.
It's K*'s birthday this week. He turns five. Yesterday, we held his birthday party for him and 19 of his friends from nursery. It was a simple party at a local community center featuring a very big bouncy castle in a large gym they could run amok in.
After the activities, Jenny and some other mothers served out a (healthy) lunch. Here's a picture of the cake Jenny made. Jenny always spends a couple of days sculpting a fantastic cake. She gets better and better at it.
K* favourite bit was the helmet which he ate. Pure sugar!
R*: "What's the F word?"Jenny [in a mild innocent voice]: "What F word is that?" R*: "The one spelt F * * *" Jenny: "Ah. Well. Ummmm. Why don't we look it up in the dictionary?"
We just happened to have bought R* a compact edition of the Colour Oxford English Dictionary this very afternoon. Sure enough, the OED is thorough!
f*** vulgar verb 1 have sex with 2 (also f*** up) damage or ruin. exclamation a strong expression of annoyance or contempt.
Hmmm. It's a children's dictionary! Of course she hears swearing in the playground and I have no doubt she has...
We've started to let R* use her own money and make her own purchase decisions. So in a bookstore yesterday she wanted to buy these Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Cards. Arrrgghhh! It's £2.50 for 9 silly game cards? I bit my lip hard and said "it's your money".
She was thrilled and bought them. My subsequent explanation of why they're a rip-off didn't dampen the excitement in the slightest. Of course, her friends also have these cards and so now she can participate in something her friends do. She says her friends just trade the cards and don't actually play the game.
I guess it's...
Last night I got together with some friends for a poker night. Danger! Red Alert! Yes, I know. I can recall sleazy gambling imagery too. Jenny was a bit dubious. Well, it cost only £10 to buy your chips so I consider it pretty cheap entertainment. The idea is to play for three hours and the person with the most chips wins 70% of the entire stake while the person with the second most chips gets 30%. There were eight of us playing so you can figure what there winner got.
I should mention that I'm not the organiser - it's James's new...
We watched R* in her first real Judo match against another girl in her class. She's so small! But so was her opponent. Jenny was pretty distressed watching the match. R* continually threw herself at the other girl and did well to keep getting on top of her. And she won. She's very chuffed.
Well after our terrible CNY restaurant dinner last Wednesday, Jenny was very unhappy. To feel better, she's been cooking up a storm of great Chinese dishes. On Saturday, we met up with Joe, Kayoko and friends in London and had a truly proper CNY dinner. Much, much better. Even had a lion dance right at our table which the kids will surely remember well (K* got "eaten" by it). All the noise made it hard to talk much though!
CNY brings a flurry of angpows for the kids so we've finally decided it was time to open up a bank account...
R* created these lyrics to the tune of "Food Glorious Food". Spelling and punctuation all original but you should know that deard is "dared" and beast is "best".
Oh DAD gloriyos DAD.Sometimes you get a bit mad.and you are very glad to add.and allways you get BAD whenthing get a mess. and I havedeard you too wher a dress and lookyour beast to look your beast ........in a dress!
I should also mention that we have been talking about dares recently and one of the big dares at the moment is if I wear a dress then so shall she (it's a...
Happy Chinese New Year! It's year of the monkey. Our celebration is pretty quiet with no family about. The kids got dressed up in Chinese clothes and we went to a local Chinese restaurant. The food was terrible. *sigh* For decent Chinese food, you have to drive into London. Tomorrow, we'll do a tea ceremony for the kids and avoid cleaning the house - my favourite part!
Last term, R* decided she would like to try Judo so we signed her up for the school club. Yesterday was her first lesson (one hour a week). Looks like a lot of fun. She learned a throw and even tried sparring. She's one of the smallest kids in the class so she's going to have to learn her techniques well.
Last summer, she started showing a lot of interest in martial arts. Now is this something one should encourage or not? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing so they say. I showed her how to punch correctly and a...
Jet lag definitely seems to be worse when you fly from West to East. The kids are sleeping from about 7 pm (very unusual!) to the middle of the night and then getting up. The previous nights, R* got up at 2 am and stayed up. K* got up last night at 2:30 am but luckily he went back to sleep until 5 am. R* was already up by then. I've been falling asleep in the late afternoon for a few hours and then staying up late. All our schedules are fuddled up.
This is my last blog entry for the year. I'm flying to Canada today and won't be back until January 11th. Don't expect a travelogue as we're just visiting friends and family in Victoria and Vancouver and maybe doing a bit of skiing. It shouldn't be too much of an adventure.
I often get a bit melancholy as the year passes away and a new one starts. You only live once and I hear the life-o-meter clicking over. Certainly, 2003 was a watershed year for us. Since I left Microsoft and took a sabbatical, Jenny and I have had plenty of discussions about...
I remember hearing many years ago that those of us who experience hair loss go through the same phases of grief as people suffering other major losses. Well, I think I've finally got to the Acceptance phase. A few weeks ago I got my (remaining) hair cut short. Very short. I mean really really short. We're talking clippers set at #3. It's been taking me a while to get used to it.
All the solutions for hair loss I've heard are just different forms of denial. Despite the spam, there's no cure for hair loss. Well, there may be one but it...
Yea! The front is finally finished five years after we moved in to this house. Well, there's a caveat there in that it needs to be filled with plants yet so I guess it's not finished finished but the builders have finished their bit. It looks so much better than before. We still need an electrician in come in and install some lighting that Jenny purchased. I think Jenny will have quite a lot of fun with the planting design but that's a project for next Spring.
I've created a new subdomain that takes you directly to this page. It's news.brainnoodles.com. If you've got this page bookmarked, please update it to be this URL. I'm planning to reimplement this website next year using a different software package and this subdomain URL won't break. It's also easier to type in.
I'm happy to report that the frontyard is almost complete. In the UK, they don't call it a frontyard. It's the front garden. However, I can't see calling it a garden as there's no plants in it. Doesn't a garden need plants?
They're just finishing putting on the tiles of the new roof which overhangs the front door and garage. It makes the house look much better. All the fencing and hardscape is finished. They've just finished laying down the gravel on the driveway. Today they've layed down the horticultural fleece and delivered all the wood chip which now needs spreading. The planting...
R* surprised us this morning by bringing us two cups of tea in bed. She's never made tea before but she did it properly. She's been boiling water in the electric kettle to make her own instant noodles and she can also use the microwave to warm food up. So this is a good next step if you ask me. Fantastic! I can now ask R* for a cup of tea! She's never taken to drinking tea herself even though many of her friends do.
K* played one of the three kings in a nativity play held at his nursery this afternoon. He was very proud and proclaimed that he did a great job. Of course he did. That's our last nursery play as he starts school next April.
After four weeks the builders are still at it doing our front yard. There's been some heavy rains so that's slowed the work down. It's driving Jenny crazy. It seems like every time she leaves the house for a few hours, the builders screw up. Lately they've built the fence wrong. Before that it was the circular paving slabs. Before that it was an uneven brick edging. It's a long list. It's great that she catches all the mistakes. Jenny could have an excellent career ahead of her as a building site manager.
The kids are keen on watching old musicals at the moment. Last month they watched "The Sound Of Music" and haven't stopped singing songs from it since. I can tell you I'm sick of hearing "Do Re Mi". The other week we watched "My Fair Lady" and today they're watching "Oliver!". I'm expecting refrains of "Food Glorious Food" for the rest of the week. Turns out Jenny hasn't seen many of these musicals either and she's going around singing the songs too. Arrghh!
Arrgghh. We still haven't got around to writing Christmas cards and shopping for presents and it won't be long until Christmas is here. The kids are getting excited. We're off to Canada to visit family and friends in Victoria and Vancouver during the holidays. Even if you don't work the time sure fills up quickly with all the things that need to get done.
Finally got together with Ian and Julian for a bit of a band practice. Everyone's been really busy and without a gig to work towards, we've lost our focus somewhat. We worked on "Sunny" (Bobby Hebb, 1965) and we took a stab at "Green Onions" (Booker T and the MG's, 1962). We also spent some time listening to CD's to try to find other songs to learn. Might try doing something from The Doors.
I signed up for an assessment of my guitar playing ability at the Guitar Institute next week. Gulp. Time to at least pull out a few theory books so I don't totally embarass myself! The assessment is just so they can figure out what courses would be best to offer me. They do offer some really great sounding courses.
I hurt. I've started going to the gym. Yesterday was my second time. I went for a few months last year but got bored but I'm giving it another shot. Gotta do something to get more fit and I've got no excuse about lack of time now. But I'll say it again. The gym is boring. However, I do feel good after the workout
I'm starting with 10 minutes jogging, 10 minutes rowing and 10 minutes on the cross-trainer. That builds a good sweat. Then some stretching followed by going around various weighting training stations concentrating on legs (so skiiing won't...
R* went on her third field trip today. She considers it her first *real* field trip. They were taken to the London National Art Gallery to look at the paintings featuring Greek Gods as part of their Classical Studies. I think it's great she gets to study Classics. At dinner, she started explaining all kinds of gruesome mythical stories. I guess that's what makes Classics appealing!
Last week, they visited a synagogue as part of their studies of Jewish cultures and before that, they went to a teacher's home to participate in a Jewish festival. Those visit were all part of...
I finished reading Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway and, inspired, I roped Jenny into trying something she's talked about but never attempted. We advertised in the local paper that she would be teaching an introductory course in Oriental Cooking. Unfortunately, the ad hasn't worked that well. We're looking for four students but only one person has signed up so far. She's not planning to teach it until January so we've still got time to find three other students.
We've had builders ripping up our front yard for the last two week. Jenny and her Dad worked out a really nice design and to her credit, Jenny has been taking care of getting it done. She selected the contractors and is doing all the material selection and project management. Gardens and landscaping is much more her forteit than mine. The new driveway is almost finished. It's going to be gravel rather than tarmac. The front wall is almost done too.
I left a carved pumpkin outside our front door and tonight some kids stole it and kicked it down the street. It was the one I did; the kids' pumpkins are safe inside. A few years back, someone stole a very nice Christmas wreath off our front door that Jenny had spent a lot of time making.
We live in a pretty good neighbourhood but you often get groups of kids walking along the street. There's plenty of pranksters. It's quite sad that these things happen and makes you think twice about putting up decorations.
Today was R*'s birthday. Eight years old! I almost can't believe it. I have to keep reminding myself they grow up quickly and to make the best of it. Yesterday, we took her and her friends to Finding Nemo (again) and then out for a pizza before coming home for a sleepover. One of the girls didn't go to sleep until 1 am and then they all got up at 6 am! Argghhh. Jenny made a fab breakfast before they went home. Today has been kind of low key. We stayed at home. Only about six groups of kids came...
The kids and I carved pumpkins yesterday while Jenny and her Mom went to London to listen to a talk by Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans. Sounded like a good talk. The pumpkins from left to right: K*, mine and R*'s
An ex-colleague of mine is an amateur producer/director and today I helped him out with a shoot of a DVD he's producing for the magician Etienne Pradier at Chilston Park. My role in the filming team was soundman; just taking care of the microphone and sound levels. I enjoyed it quite a lot. It's nice to be part of a team solving problems and making something. Yeah, I miss that. The DVD was of Etienne teaching how to do some of the tricks he does. It was just fun watching him explain the tricks as he did them! He's very good.
Soundman...
Jenny and I have been trying to plan out our holidays for next year. Now that we take holidays in high season, you have to plan this far ahead. The holiday would need to fall between April 3rd to 22nd or July 24th to Sept 1st. If any of you are interested in joining us, get in touch! We've always found it fun to go on holidays with others. Next year, I'm pretty keen to muck about with boats. Here are some ideas:
Faraway offers Sail & Dive Expeditions in Thailand and Burma. The idea is to hire a catamaran with a...
Took K* to Legoland yesterday. He loves it and we need to make use of the annual pass. It's definitely getting cold though! The highlight, of course, is the lego shop. He sure is good at making stuff.
R* had to memorize the following poem:
A man of words and not of deeds.Is like a garden full of weeds;And when the weeds begin to grow,It's like a garden full of snow; And when the snow begins to fall,It's like a bird upon the wall;And when the bird away does fly,It's like an eagle in the sky;And when the sky begins to roar,It's like a lion at the door; And when the door begins to crack,It's like a stick across your back;And when your back begins to smart,It's like a penknife in your heart;And when your heart begins to bleed,You're...
I took the children to Kindermusik lessons this morning. K* was patiently sitting on me watching R*'s lessons when, without warning, he threw up all over himself and me. I automatically tried to catch it with my hands which works for babies but a four year old produces a lot more volume. While still in a state of surprise, he threw up a second time! Yuck!! *sigh*....I really thought we were past this stage.
We're celebrating Jenny's birthday today. We've been out for lunch and this evening we're having a little celebration at home. For her gift, I'm taking her for a two day adventure next week and as a hint, I gave her a model of a Mercedes ML 320 (she said she wanted a new car).
R* seems to be gradually settling into her new school without much problem. She has a new friend, Holly, who she describes as a tomboy - an attribute R* admires in girls. The worst insult at the moment is to call R* a "Barbie". She stays away from anything girlie. She also had her first real homework assign over the weekend which was to write ten informational sentences about Rene Descartes.
Jenny's parents arrived safe and sound last night after a 14 hour flight from KL. Jenny's mom has lost no time in sorting out our kitchen cupboards (too much food!) while her dad is revising Jenny's design for a new front yard. They're not the kind of inlaws that sit around the house...
Over our holidays in Cornwall, K* had a bit of a breakthrough. He can now eat ice cream! As you might know as a baby K* had allergies to nuts, dairy and wheat resulting in very bad excema. The wheat allergy disappeared some years ago and his skin has been relatively good since then. Over the last few months, he's been eating cheese (pizza!) and chocolate and other things made with milk without ill effects. So over the holidays he even had ice cream and now loves hot chocolate too. We limit how much dairy he has but it's great that he can...
Today was R*'s first day at a new school starting Year Three. She was a bit nervous but held up really well. She's a very adaptable kid and, fingers-crossed, she'll settle in soon enough. Unfortunately, school starts at eight o'clock and it takes me twenty minutes to drive her there. Early mornings ugghh!!
We seem to have been adopted by a cat. Our guess is that he's a Birman Seal Point. Nice cat except that he's rather vocal. Very soft and furry and well-natured. While full grown he must be quite young as he's still playful. The kids love him and have named him "Snowbell". R* and I have been sneaking him food (Jenny doesn't quite approve) but he's not that hungry so he must have owners nearby.
R* has been planning her birthday even though its two months away. Here's her current birthday present wish list.
game boy
mobil phone
laptop
trumpit
saxuphone
Harry Potter broom
Harry Potter kit
dog
since kit (science kit)
face paits (face paints)
lego
morchk cuntol car (remote control car)
Yesterday we had a one hour dance lesson reviewing the samba. Don't know when we'll ever get to dance it but it was fun remembering how it went.
I've tried a couple of webcam conversations using MSN Messenger v6.0. It works really well. No firewall problems. The frame rate is rather low but good enough. Audio is much improved with new echo cancellation. We've hooked it to Jenny's laptop so we can roam around the house and garden with it since it's using WiFi. Cool. Drop by sometime.
We switched to a shared one hour semi-private lesson but unfortunately Jenny wasn't feeling well today and missed the class. I got to try cantering. Very scary! I swear I was close to falling off a few times. I was riding Mulberry, the lazy insolent horse, and she's particularly bouncy and harder to control than the others. She also bucked a couple of times! The canter is a bit tricky to get into and trying to stay on during the canter feels like riding in a rodeo. Obviously this is going to take work.
R* lost her fourth tooth today. She's now missing both of her upper front teeth and has a big toothless smile. However, tonight is the first night she's ever decided to give her tooth to the tooth fairy. She kept the last three. We've given her two pounds for it.
Turns out that a survey by Crest discovered that the average payout has doubled in the last year to two pounds probably due to the spread of the two pound coin. Up until 1985, it was only 10p!
I just finished an intense PADI Open Water Diving Referral course held at a nearby pool over the last two days. Before the course, it required reading a book, watching some video's and answering some quizes. The course itself alternated between pool sessions practising scuba skills and classroom work which concludes with a final exam you had to pass. The theory is easy but practice is more challenging. It went well but I did find it a bit freaky at times.
Right in the beginning, I felt my nerve dissolving as diving underwater is such a strange environment! But as you stick with it, you slowly get more comfortable. I'm...
After a few weeks, my rising trot was already rusty but didn't take long to get back into it. Practiced speed control because we're going to start working on cantering next. Turns out you can't go directly from rising trot to cantering. You have to make the transition from a sitting trot. I confirmed with the instructor that riding a horse is like riding a bicycle in the the sense that once you know how, you don't really forget it. So we're still persisting with it.
Jenny passed her qualifying open water dives this weekend and is now a PADI qualified open water diver. Brave girl! She did it at Wraysbury Lake near London. Not the first place you think of when you think of diving! She did two dives on Saturday and two dives on Sunday. She had a difficult third dive but otherwise it went well and she's got a story to tell.
Still working at direction control. Got to whip, kick, change weight, look and pull the reins all at the right time.
Yesterday was my birthday and I turned 40. First, a big thank you for the emails, phone calls, well wishes, cards and gifts and to those who helped me celebrate the occasion. The honest truth though is that turning forty sucks. When you're twenty, you know you're young and life is fine. And when you turn thirty, it's a bit of shock and you wonder where all the time has gone but you can still convince yourself you're young and keep going. But when you hit forty, you know you're not young and even though the mind is willing, the body tends to...
So it's been three months since I quit Microsoft. People ask me "how's it going?" and the best explanation I have is to ask whether they remember being a kid before you started taking a summer job? For me that was about age fourteen. You would have the whole summer off and not an obligation in the world to worry about. The summer just went on and on and on and you lived it day by day. Right now, it feels kind of like that. Okay, there's more obligations but there's also more means. Certainly been able to keep pretty busy...
R* is now off school so she came and watched us today. Of course she would love to learn to ride too. Had a really good session trotting around the arena working on improving direction control. Might move on the cantering soon.
Still working on that rising trot with Cypress. Cypress however decided to go in a canter. Whoa, that was different! Near panic. Felt like sitting on a rocking horse. Anyway, we're still making progress with the horse riding.
R* and K* had their last Kindermusik lessons for the summer. R* has done very well in them and is keen to continue but K* is still rather shy about participating. It's a bit frustrating as he's very musical at home but doesn't like to perform on demand. Hopefully, he'll be more forthcoming next year. Meanwhile, R* is ready to start an instrument. Someone suggested we should get her into the choir. At any rate, she's still keen on the trumpet but she can't start that until she gets her four adult front teeth. She starts a new school in...
Met with R*'s teacher tonight to discuss her report card and see her work. She did very well so not a whole lot to discuss really. She also finished the national tests and did fine in them (in the UK, there are controversial national tests at ages 7 and 11). We're letting her decide how she wants to celebrate this success so she wants to go to a theme park with scary rides.
Tonight we had a private two hour salsa dance lesson with Faisal Hameed of Dance Haven. Again, someone I found off the Internet. It was very good - learned lots. I especially learned a lot about proper leading - it turns out to be a lot stronger than I thought. The lady pretty much has no choice but to go and do exactly what you want her to do. No spaghetti arms. We learned several new moves and strung them together in two routines. Need to practice them now. Also learned that everthing you learn in salsa can be easily applied...
Yeehaa! Finally got the rising trot much better. Felt good. Jenny has moved onto a pony named Coral which being smaller, gives her a much better riding position. Unfortunately, ponies aren't as well behaved as horses and tend to do what they want to do. She was told you have to treat a pony like a small child which should be to Jenny's advantage I suppose.
Spent the weekend with guests. Our friends Willy, Iona and family were on their way back to Canada and stayed with us the weekend. Didn't do a whole lot. Bummed around London on Sunday and enjoyed a stroll through Kensington Gardens. Discovered a good Malaysian restaurant called Assam Manis on Queensway. Very big portions. Jenny, Iona and Iona's daughter went to see The Reduced Shakespear Company and had a good time. Said it was very funny and highly abridged.
I'm wearing my new trial contact lenses right now for the first time. I thought I couldn't wear contacts due to astigmatism but it seems you can with these Toric contact lenses. They're daily wear lenses so no fussing with cleaners too. Still feels very odd - like how your eyes feel when you're super tired. It's a trial so I'll see how it goes. Vision is certainly good with them on.
Jenny's has her rising trot down well. I'm afraid I haven't. Got a bad back today so worked on steering and how to setup the saddle instead. Back on Cypress. Mulberry nearly bit Jenny.
Forgot to mention that R* earned her Aqua Skills Level Two badge last week. I take her to her swimming lessons every Thursday now. She's doing very well and is definitely getting a lot more confident in the water.
Tonight R* was officially sworn in as a Brownie after pledging herself to the Brownie promise: "I promise that I will do my best: To love my God, To serve the Queeen and my country, To help other people and To keep the Brownie Guide Law". The Brownie Guide Law is: "A Brownie Guide thinks of others before herself and does a Good Turn every day".
Still working on that rising trot with Mulberry. Jenny got Cypress this time. Our legs hurt!
Both kids have abandoned wearing PJ's to sleep in for the time being. Instead, they've both acquired old T-shirts of mine and keep on trying to get more. Of course, they're way too big. They look like medieval street urchins running around in them but they really like it. Luckily, I have a big supply of old T-shirts thanks to the computer industry!
Today we went to R*'s Schools' Summer Fayre. (yes, takes a while to get used to them spelling it fayre rather than fair just like tire is tyre here). The kids loved it. We gave them some money and they ran off and spent it on all the little amusements - donkey ride, tambola, bouncy castle, etc. We spent most of our time picking over the second hand toys and books. Jenny did a shift manning the toy tables and selling items. There was a huge amount of stuff and all of it going for a song. We used this event...
I let it slip out that I'm interested in recording so I've been invited to get the East Berkshire Youth Orchestra recorded and a CD printed. Only problem is they have their pre-tour gig on July 12 and then they're off to France and Germany. They want to sell the CD while touring so that leaves two weeks to see whether it can be done! Argghh!! I don't see how we can pull this off but it's worth a shot. Maybe we can get a local studio involved. I'm interested in recording the students over the next year. Some of them...
We played our second gig tonight at the Berkshire Youth Musicians Trust Music Marathon. It's a very small casual affair. The kids will be playing for 24hrs and we did a short set starting at 10pm. Went ok - not as much pressure as before. We're now bored with the songs we've learned and really need to start working on a new set.
I ordered a diving mask today with prescriptive lenses. That's why I went and got an eye test. I've signed up for an intense diving course with DiveStyle in August and we're hoping to go to the Red Sea for a diving trip around October. Right now I'm researching the equipment we should buy (wet suits) and where exactly we should go and who to book with. If you've got any opinions, I'd love to hear them!
Had an eye test today and was very pleased to find out my eye sight has actually improved over the last few years! I've ordered daily disposable contact lenses which will be so much better than glasses when we're out and about doing our various activities. I always been told my astigmatism prevented me using contacts but apparently not with the ones I'm getting.
Had Mulberry again today! She wasn't so bad provided you stay away from her mouth. Still working on the rising trot trying it without stirrups once and trying it without reins another time. Now also doing stretches to "open out the hips". It hurts but getting better. Jenny had a new horse, Peco but it was rather large for her legs to get around.
We've been making medieval sheilds for the kids. We started with white cardboard and I cut them to the right shape. They painted them. Jenny finished them off with gold emblems. They look quite good so they both took them to school today to show them off. Now they want swords! Hmmm. That will only end in tears so they have to make swords themselves out of paper. Even then, we've got to stop them stabbing each other in the head!
As part of getting back to dancing, I've been wanting to have refresher lessons of all the modern and latin ballroom stuff we used to know. Today we had our first private lesson with Suzanne Lear at a local church hall. She's a dance teacher I found through the Internet like everything else I find. The handy thing is that we can take R* and K* with us rather than find babysitting. We kind of hope that by watching us, they might get interested in dancing.
The lesson went well. We showed her some of what we remembered (embarrasing how little) and then...
Jenny has put a mysterious entry into our calender "Ian busy for whole week" from July 14th through to the 18th and refuses to explain it to me. She just wants to make sure I don't book anything that week. No doubt this is a birthday surprise. I have no idea what it is and she won't give clues yet.
Got a package today introducing me to how to be a school governor. Lots to learn about the procedures and process they follow. There's also some courses that I can go on that are provided free. More reading to do!
Harry Potter is the favourite reading material at the moment around our house. Jenny has just finished the Goblet of Fire and the Order of the Phoenix in just a few days each! I've just finished listening to the Prisoner of Azkaban ahead of R* who has one more CD to listen to but it's quite scary for her. We'll have to find Goblet of Fire on CD for her next. I like to savour books like that by reading them slowly over long stretches of time in silence without any interruptions. I'm itching to start on Goblet of Fire...
So how many of you out there sit on the toilet and read? Well, I caught K* doing that today. He's only four and can't read yet but he diligently took his new Lego Fanclub magazine with him and sat on the toilet and looked through it slowly. Funny, never thought it would start this young!
I've been reading lately about low carb diets. I heard about them sometime ago and read a little on the net before buying "Atkins for Life" from Costco. Makes a lot of sense to me - I've known that bakeries are evil for a long time - sugar and white flour are the big killers. The big controversy with Atkins is that he goes against the dominate low calorie/low fat diet and just restricts carbohydrates and uses ketosis. You can eat lots of protein and fat. If you read the book though, you'll find the diet is very balanced.
So I've...
Tonight we skipped our salsa lesson and I went for band practice. We've got a gig coming up this Friday so we needed to rehearse our old set. The only song we might add is "Summertime Blues". We've been listening to quite a lot of music and discussing the direction we should take with the band. The general agreement seems to be to stick to early rock, R&B, blues and rockabilly numbers. Personally, I don't really care as long as it's not folk or country; I just enjoy playing with a group.
Had my third horse riding lesson today. Jenny was well enough to have her second. I again had Cypress but unfortunately Jenny got Mulberry. Jenny didn't think Mulberry was so bad. I continued working on getting the rising trot correct. Quite tricky to get the right motion but it's getting better. Next week,we'll be working on getting the motion of my legs correct. The half hour goes by very quickly.
Jenny went on an all day family first aid course on Sunday called Family First Aid. She enjoyed it and said it was good. They crammed a lot in. She got to snog a dummy but I pointed out she does that every day. Now she can keep me alive while we wait for the ambulance.
Had my second horse riding lesson this morning. Unfortunately, Jenny wasn't up to it with her cold. The lesson went well. My horse was Cypress and she was much better than Mulberry. More sensitive. That's means you don't have to kick her much to move her forward. Not emotional. No biting. Cypress was also less bouncy and much more comfortable to ride when trotting. Maybe the tight underwear also helped! Started getting the knack of the rising trot - essentially you stand up in your seat every other "beat" of the horses gait and bounce up and down as you...
I've been invited to become a Community School Governor at R*'s school starting next September. I've accepted of course. I'm really quite looking forward to finding out how I can help and being part of a non-corporate organisation. More details in a few months.
Jenny is in bed nursing a cold today. It takes a lot to keep Jenny in bed so she's really zonked. Suffering with allergies makes it worse too.
Took K* to Legoland again today but when we got there we found the "Build & Test" room closed for school groups. I had one disappointed little boy on my hands but luckily there was still lots of other stuff to do. But I have it on good authority that *nothing* is as good as the "Build & Test" room.
Tonight we had our fifth salsa lesson. Mostly a repeat of what we knew plus one new move. That's the problem with drop-in lessons; you often cover old material. But it's all beginning to flow somewhat better. Lots to improve on of course. Got a salsa CD now and downloaded a whole lot of salsa music using Kazaa so we can practice at home.
Jenny and I had our first horse riding lesson this morning. Went well. Of course, we started with basics and just managed to try the rising trot at the end. The sitting trot is not fun as you essentially just have to relax and absorb all the bouncing in the lower half of your body. You're at a definite disadvantage if you happen to have testicles; no wonder more women seem to be into horses! Tight underwear is definitely a good idea. The rising trot is better but is obviously going to require a lot of work from the thigh...
Happy Father's Day, Dad! Yes, I'll phone too. Jenny and the kids made me cards and bought me a music CD each (I always like getting a new music CD). We've been out the rest of the day so no day of leisure for me.
My web/email hosting company had a little accident and lost all our email accounts and mailing lists. I was one of the unlucky 10% that weren't recovered. Still some hope of a restore but it's not really a big deal. If you just happened to have sent email to me on Friday/Saturday, I might not have seen it. Unfortunately, Jenny hasn't checked her email for much longer so if you sent her anything in the last week, you should probably resend it.
K* was traumatized today. He swallowed a very small piece of lego and got incredibly upset. I don't think it was because he lost the lego or was worried about digesting it. He was just angry that he swallowed it by accident and nothing would console him. For dinner both kids ate their jelly by sucking it through a straw; it makes lots of disgusting loud sounds doing it that way. Meanwhile Jenny and I planned out eight years of travel around the world.
Took K* to Legoland today. It was great; no line-ups and no crowds. Spent most of our time in the "Build & Test" room which is by far K*'s favourite place. It's a room with tables and lots of lego where you can build small cars. In the middle of the room are two racing ramps with a starting gate and finish line. You race up to six model cars and it tells you the finish time and speed of the winner. K* can spend hours at it and of course I can't help but get involved in the engineering challenge...
Jenny has started on a Pilates exercise program. Yeah, I didn't know what Pilates was too - at least until recently. Seems really good. I like the philosophy behind it. Haven't tried it myself yet but I probably will. Right now, it seems to be killing Jenny though!
So the kids decided yesterday to have a bath with their underwear on. They thought it was hilarious. They also invented a new language where every word they said had to start with a "p". Pe've peen phaving pa pot pof pun pive phat! K* has also figured out that he has to peel oranges with his eyes closed to stop getting squirted in the eye.
Still working on it. Learned the hammerhead turn and the cuban turn. Classes are getting bigger as the evening seems to be getting more popular. Getting enough dance moves now to make the dance interesting.
Jenny has been navel gazing for a good few months now and is pretty much settled on a new career direction in the field of Nutritional Therapy. I think it's a great direction as it combines her interests in food, diet and health. She also wants to approach it from the angle of gourmet cooking for a restricted diet which is a niche no one seems to address. At the moment, she's figuring out the exact course of study to enroll on.
Now I do have a small sense of foreboding about this. One, the children and I will probably suffer through all kinds of dietary changes albeit...
It's still some months until R*'s birthday but she made this list (her spelling)
Harry Potter Lego
a snowy white owl
twister
a black cat
CDs 5
rmockcontrol arplain
rmockcontrol car
playmobil
slob!!!!
a hamick
a new helmit
a lite for my bike
gears
a dog
Got together tonight with the other band members. Trying to figure out what other songs to learn and we've come up with a few candidates. There's a school marathon event coming up that we're going to play at.
We spent the day at Legoland in Windsor. The kids had a good time of course. We bought an annual pass for all of us so you can guess where we'll be spending quite a few days this summer. K* is very good at building lego vehicles considering he's only four. I grew up with lego so it's not like I'm mind joining him playing with it! In fact, when we got home, our shipment from the lego shop had arrived which was great timing. I treated myself by buying the Technic pneumatic pack. Cool! Now I can have all...
Lesson #3 was more interesting as we've moved up to the next group and learned a bunch of new steps (cross body turn, men single turn, copa, turning step) - certainly enough to challenge my leading ability! Hehet are the people running these sessions.
Hey it's been one month already since leaving Microsoft. Wow, the time goes by quickly. Still feels very unsettling not going to work and not having a regular routine to anchor one's life. Funny how it's still difficult to find all the time I want for various projects - especially the programming ones. I'm happy with progress I've made on a few things. It's a real challenge to stay focused and not waste what time I have or start on new commitments.
Had our second night of Salsa lessons. Went well although it was a repeat of last weeks lessons; should have moved up to the next group. Dancing is definitely easier for the woman since she just follows. The man has to keep the rhythm, know his moves, be able to lead and constantly decide what to do next. And do it all in style!
My ex-colleagues at Microsoft gave me a going-away card and some gifts yesterday before we went to the pub. They included a signed guitar strap, tinwhistle, bodhran (Irish drum), flute, tamborine, pair of maracas and a ukulele! I think they know I'm into music (thanks guys!). I like collecting musical instruments. Up to now I've only really collected several string instruments but I like the idea of collecting percussion instruments too. I think they're a great thing to buy as travel souveniers.
I've been playing about with the tinwhistle with the help of the Chiff & Fipple website. Easy to play and fantastically portable.
Each weekend the kids sleep in a small pop-up sun safe tent in their bedroom. It's been going on for a few months now and they're still excited every weekend to do it on Friday night and Saturday night. The tent is small so K* curls up and R* has her legs sticking out the tent opening. Very cute when you see them asleep.
It's spring cleaning time in our house. Time to get ruthless and get rid of all this junk! It's amazing how it all just piles up. The kids are a little distraught but we bribed them with promises of sharing the proceeds from sales.
As you may know, the concept of "six degree's of separation" proproses that you can reach anyone in the world through a contact chain of six people. Well on Saturday I met up with my wifes' cousins' (Vincent) wife's uncle who just happens to live nearby! Small world eh?
We just got back from an evening of salsa lessons followed by a dance. It was pretty good. The teachers happen to be all black and dance really well. The instruction is very rapid; we learned six steps (New York basic, Cuban basic, Mambo, Opening Out, New Yorker, Side to Side) and combined them all in an hour. About fifty people were there divided into about four groups of different levels. During the lesson, you switch partners frequently. Women outnumber men so to encourage men to come, their first lesson is free. And to top it off, there's a bar...
Why was 8 afraid of 7? Because 7 ate 9.
Jenny has discovered a new career option that has her intrigued. Read about it here.
I just got back from playing lead guitar at my first live gig. Phew. It turned out ok. We played during the intermission of the charity jazz night for the East Berkshire Junior Orchestra. I guess there were about 100 people there. The EBJO were excellent and none of them are older than 17. Two of the students also sang very well. Hard act to follow!
Then there was us - Tina and the Taxi Drivers. Julian's wife made a great facade for the bass drum. Tina was cool and the rest of us were quite nervous but it all worked...
My daughters' latest joke: "How do you get six donkeys in a fire engine?"
Two in the front; two in the back and two on top going "Eeee-orrr, Eeee-orrr, Eeee-orrr!"
Hint: You need to know what a British fire engine sounds like to appreciate this :-)
Jenny is pretty pleased with her new laptop. She can now surf anywhere in the house and not fight with me for "her turn" at the computer :-) I'm quite sure we both now spend more time surfing on the Internet rather than watching TV. Geeks 'r' us.
There's a few pictures here of my leaving party. Yes, that is a lollipop with a scorpion in it. The website is Chung's personal picture album mostly of work trips.
For those into cars, I added a picture of my car to the bottom of my track day article.
Had a good band rehearsal this afternoon. We played in a school hall with the volume fully cranked and now with a new singer, Tina - a tall blonde German girl we can hide behind and Suzy on acoustic guitar. After a bit of nerves, it was great fun and I finally worked out the solo bits I need to do. The songs we're doing are all from the Paul McCartney Run Devil Run CD. Here's our set:
All Shook Up
I Got Stung
Coquette
Honey Hush
What It Is
Party
The gig is next weekend and we still have a lot of practice to put it to...
Had an aromatherapy massage today for a stiff neck and shoulders problem I've had for ages. I highly recommend getting a massage even if you don't have any aches. It's just plain feels good. Spoil yourself. If you work at Microsoft Ltd, you can get one onsite and it's well worth it.
Joined Costco today. They have a store near Reading that opened about a year ago. It was like getting reacquainted with a long lost friend as we used to go to one often when we lived in Vancouver. The layout is still the same old formula and the prices certainly good - especially for food. And finally, proper pizza! Thick ones with lots on it and not the anemic things they try to sell everywhere else in the UK. But alas, no maple syrup...
(Addendum 3rd May: Went shopping at Costco and found the maple syrup! Two happy Canadians! :-)
R* started brownies today and really enjoyed it. "It was brill" she says, "we played games, sang songs and other things". "I knew two other friends there already." "It only seemed like I was there for a minute before I had to come home"
Rained today. Started with my regular routine. Took R* to school. Had breakfast. And then had nowhere to go. Very strange feeling. It's hard to shake this feeling of being in wrong place at the wrong time. Got in the way of the cleaner trying to clean our house (once a week). Went back to bed; that didn't help as the cleaner wanted me out. Hmmmm. Our cleaner is a character I'll have to tell you about later. So I worked on my computer which felt more like the usual thing I do.
Had a leaving party last Friday. Jenny surprised...
So R* asked me the other day how I earned money when I was a boy. I proceeded to explain about recycling bottles, selling berries and doing a paper route all for the sake of some spending money. I told her about selling girl guide cookies and that being a cute little girl, she could sell anything. Something clicked.
Today she hounded Jenny to help her make chocolate chip cookies until twenty were baked and sure enough she went and sold them! Sold 10 to one neighbour, 4 to another and 5 to yet another. At 10p a cookie (biscuits in...
Hosted our first BBQ of the year to celebrate Easter Sunday with family and friends. All went well. Yolanda and Jenny cooked a fantastic spread. I didn't burn anything (not much anyway!). Broke out the champagne. Had an Easter egg hunt in the garden for the kids. Even the weather was better than expected - warm enough to sit outside. My cousin offered to swap golf lessons for computer lessons. Wouldn't mind learning but I don't think I've got THAT much time...
For several weeks now our daughter has been posing rather morbid questions to us out of the blue:
Would you rather:
be trampled by elephants or starve to death?
be eaten by a lion or burn to death?
be eaten by a lion or slowly eaten by rats?
be eaten by a lion or thrown in a pool of crocodiles?
drown in water or be eaten by a shark?
go to war and die or get your head chopped off?
get killed by a sword or get killed by a gun?
burn to death or choke to death?
be slowly eaten by rats or burn to death?
I think she's trying...
R* posted a review of "James and the Giant Peach". I'll send you the link if you want to see it but I can't post it here.
I went public with my resignation yesterday at our team meeting. Surprised everyone with the annoucement and we all then went to the pub. I'll sorely miss being part of a technical team. Told my parents that evening. News is spreading. After churning over this decision for so long I'm now feeling much more relaxed. Decision is made and there's no going back.
I'm a member of the Porsche Club of Great Britain. Went to a local regional meeting down at the pub today. It's a very casual affair where owners just get together and have a beer and a chat. In the parking lot were about twenty Porsches of various models old and new. I still think the 993 looks the best. Had a great chat with a fellow who owned a purple 993 Carrera 4S. Turns out he's also an IT Consultant and he was born in Malaysia. Lots of talk about! Got a bit of advice and had a nice...
Attended a great British instituition tonight - Quiz Night at the local junior school. Out of 14 tables, ours came in 3rd to last after 10 rounds of 10 questions. Oh well. I was never that good at Trivia Pursuit either. Certainly, there is a great love in British culture for general knowledge - or should that be obscure knowledge! Good fun anyway especially as they have an open bar.
This afternoon we dropped by the Thames Valley Falconry Centre I mentioned earlier. Cool. They demonstrated flying the birds. R* now wants a small owl of her very own. She also...
My wife, Jenny, just bought a juicing machine for us after a few days of intense research on the Internet. She finally decided on the Green Star GS-3000 and minutes ago we tried out our first juice - apple, carrot and celery. Seems like a pretty good product - very good yield, dry pulp and not too noisy. Cleaning doesn't seem too difficult but took longer than actually making the juice. The machine has twin gears and can even juice leafy vegetables. It can also make nut butter, pasta noodles and turns frozen fruit into slushes. That will be great this...
Mothering Sunday today. My wife got to lie in bed, lots of teas, cards and dinner made for her. We went to the open house at the Berkshire Agriculture College. The weather has been fantastic for over a week so it felt like early summer. Daffodils are everywhere. The open house is like a country fair with animals, farmers market, tractor rides, horse riding etc. The best part for me is seeing all the new born lambs, some only hours old. While there, we joined the local Wildlife Trust. Seems like a worthwhile cause with talks for adults, events for children...
On Saturday, my daughter performed at the Kindermusik Concert. I take both children to Kindermusik each Saturday. From the website:
The classes are designed to encourage young children to enjoy musical self-expression, self discipline and co-ordination through a wide range of activities including singing, playing percussion instruments, musical games, listening and movement.
I just hope it encourages them both to be musical. R* now wants to learn the violin. *sigh* - I will learn to like listening to squeaks. I would prefer the cello myself. In truth, R* really wants to learn the trombone but you not really allowed to learn brass...
I wrote and submitted my resignation letter today. Phew. Quite difficult really. Logically, I have lots of reasons why it's time to move on but I feel sad to leave. It's a good company filled with lots of interesting people and plenty of opportunity. It's a comfortable known.
I think one of the most underestimated aspects of work life is the community and social interactions. Work not only gives you an identity but it makes you part of a community. And if you think about it, you probably spend more time in that community than with your own family. That's why...
My inquisitive seven year old daughter (R*) has discovered sex - thanks to a book and her new found reading skills. From the "Usborne Pocket Scientist", I quote page 58 with the heading "How does a baby start?":
"A baby starts to grow when an egg and sperm meet and join together. They do this inside the mother's body. The way the sperm get to the egg is through the mother's vagina. The mother and father cuddle each other very close. The father's penis gets stiffer and fits comfortably inside the mother's vagina. This is called making love or having sex".
R*...
Missed blogging yesterday due to band practice. Maybe "band" is overstating it but there are three other guys I recently started practicing some songs with the idea of playing for fun at a charity gig in six weeks. I've played guitar on and off - well mostly off really - for the past twenty odd years. No, let's rephrase that. I've been stuck in a rut for twenty years and never got that good. But I'm still trying and this is the first time I'm actually playing in a group. Can play lots of chords but my soloing isn't very...
Out the door by 7:30am and trekked to Canary Wharf by car, train, tube, train and then walking. Took over two hours. Then a tedious visit at a customer followed by the same long trek home getting back after 8:00pm. That kind of commuting can really suck the life force out of you and reminds me of one of the reasons I want to get out of consulting. I've got the same gig tomorrow *sigh*.
The only good thing I'll say for commuting is that it gives you a kind of think time. You can essentially zone out while your body...
I did it today. After working at Microsoft for twelve years, I sat down together with my manager, Ken, and a latte (small with one sugar) this morning and announced that I had decided to leave Microsoft.
The decision was a long time in the making and I'll probably try and explain some it at some point in this weblog but not today. Today I just want to mark this event and to do that I thought I'd start blogging. So welcome to my blog.
I'm feeling calm and optimistic after pondering this change for so long. It feels like the start of a...