January 2005 Archives
This morning my subconscious had a battle with my alarm clock(s). "WAKE UP!!!" went the alarm clock(s). "No..." went my subconscious. "Zzzzzz" went Dan. "WAKE UP!!!" went the alarm clock(s). "No..." went my subconscious. "Zzzzzz" went Dan.
Eventually both Terry Wogan and the alarm on my mobile phone gave up trying to convince my subconscious that it wasn't the weekend any more. Until my subconscious suddenly thought to itself "Hey, it's gone quiet. Those alarms aren't going off any more, and there's no-one telling me about the traffic on the M25. Why were those alarms going off anyway? Shouldn't we be somewhere?"
Ah well, just another Monday morning....
Turn off the television.
Turn off the light, the phone, the computer.
Turn off the outside world.
Tonight this is just me.
Me, myself, I, a bottle of whisky
and some music
Concentrate on the music
Immerse myself in it
Tubular Bells, Dark Side of the Moon, Zooropa.......
Sip the whisky
Watch the flames of the "real" fire
Feel comforted by it's warmth
Safe.
Enjoy the moment. Leave the washing up.
Don't think about last week.
Don't think about tomorrow.
Enjoy the moment.
Put my thoughts down on paper.
Hope I can read my handwriting later.
No internet, no fatty foods, no drugs
Except the legal ones.
Pour another whisky. Roll another cigarette.
Close my eyes, listen to the sounds...... nothing else matters.
No mess
No clutter
No procrastination
No distractions
Just Think. For a minute.
What is important?
What matters?
What can I do to help?
What will they say about me when I'm dead?
No answers
No more questions
Enjoy the moment.
Seek clarity.
Clarity is happiness.
I managed to do today what I couldn't get done last weekend. Not only did I make it into town without my legs screaming in agony, but I made it back again, in one piece, having taken the long way round. I didn't intend to go all the way around the reservoir, honest. Or get my boots all covered in mud. But still, six and a half miles (plus whatever I did while inside the shopping centre; the GPS doesn't work indoors!) is pretty good going. I feel like I've achieved something today - let's see if I can do the same distance tomorrow.
Well, I don't know if this is part of a mid-life crisis or something, but I've been thinking for a long time that there's got to be a lot more to life than this. Here I am, a divorced guy living on his own, earning just about enough to keep his head above water but not enough to have what anyone would call a lifestyle, seeing his son once or twice a week except when my ex is pissed at me (like she is at the moment), and as I sit here again in front of the computer on yet another Friday night/Saturday morning I'm bored to death and can't help feeling that I'm wasting my life. There have been days (certainly days this week) when I've felt very much unloved and unwanted. I even thought the other day that if I were to just get in my car on a Friday evening after work and go away for the weekend, book myself into a B&B, maybe do some walking, how long would it take for anyone to miss me? My ex would start to miss my wallet before she started to miss me, that's for sure. If I were to go away for the weekend and leave my mobile behind, how long would it be before anyone started to worry about me?
I know these aren't the healthiest of thoughts, and believe me some of the thoughts I've had this week have been a bit unhealthier than this, but ........ there's got to be more. I've seen reports on television recently about people who have given up everything they had at home so they could fly to Asia to help with the tsunami relief effort. I admire people who can do that sort of thing, and then I thought, well, why can't I do that sort of thing as well? Actually the thought of doing something like that occurred to me a little while back, certainly before the tsunami and maybe even as far back as last summer. But then I thought, well, I've got a son here and he loves to spend time with me, so I put it all to the back of my mind.
But why should I be miserable for a hundred hours a week just so I can be happy for 12 hours with my son? Is that a sacrifice I'm prepared to make? Is it worth it? I spend 35 hours a week in a windowless office staring at a computer screen, about 9 hours a week driving, about 46 hours a week sleeping (which if you do the maths you'll realise isn't enough) and about 10 minutes a week washing up, haha. And throughout the whole lot I am completely miserable. I try to kid myself I'm happy sometimes. I put some loud music on in the car and tap my feet. I watch entertaining programmes on the television, some of which actually raise the occasional smile. I upgrade the software behind the blog to cut out the spam. I get a good deal on a fridge-freezer over the internet. But does it make me happy? Nope. I feel like I've got something to give, something to contribute, and no channel through which to give it. A couple of years ago I came to the conclusion that if you put a smile onto someone else's face every day, then you'll be happy. Or on the road to happiness, or whatever. But I've got no-one I can make smile. There's my son, of course, and he lifts my spirits every time I see him, but I don't see him anywhere near enough to make a difference to either my life or his.
Low self-esteem doesn't help either. I'm 38, balding, overweight, living in an untidy house, with a crap job, no spare money, no investments and no pension. A great catch for the opposite sex, don't you think? I've mentioned before on this blog about being in a rut, and trying to pull myself out of it. Time, I believe, for extreme measures. I'm thinking of joining Voluntary Services Overseas. Well, I've read the web site and sent off for an information pack, which is a start. I seem to make lots of starts in my life, don't I? Lots of starts and not many finishes.
So what do I hope to get out of this? Let's look at this selfishly for a minute and make a list:
1. The computer skills I have are not relevant enough for me to easily move into a new job here in England, but they are certainly good enough to teach someone in a developing country how to use a computer.
2. I'm hoping the experience will help me realise what is truly important in life, rather than getting bogged down with all the trivialities.
3. I'm hoping I can lose some weight and get a bit fitter while I'm out there. A change of diet and even a slightly more active lifestyle will do me the world of good.
4. I think I've got something to give, something that will benefit other people.
5. I hope to make new friends, meet interesting people, and eventually gain their respect.
6. I want to do something I can look back on and be proud of. I want other people to be proud of me.
7. Having worked voluntarily overseas for two years to help people more disadvantaged than myself will make me a stronger person, and (let's not beat about the bush here) will look good on my CV.
8. And finally: I hope the people I help overseas will benefit from my experience and knowledge, and I leave with the satisfaction of a job well done.
Think of it as a detox for my whole life. And I'm in the perfect position at the moment to be able to do it. The big question is, what's more important? My weeks, or my son's Saturdays?
Fed up of linking to my site using the boringly short and staggeringly obvious www.danielfreedman.co.uk? Use this link instead:
Courtesy of hugeurl.com
If all went well, this entry should be posted while I'm actually in the car driving home....
Yesterday I thought I'd make myself useful and defrost the freezer. There was so much ice caked at the back of it that I couldn't open one of the drawers any more. So I started out doing it properly, getting panfuls of steaming hot water to try and melt the ice, but then I thought "blow this for a game of soldiers" and went at it with a hammer and screwdriver.
All went well for the first hour. I chipped away, and the ice came off in huge great clumps. I managed to get the stuck drawer out. I even managed to get the panel unscrewed at the back so I could get all the ice out from round the pipes. With the hammer and screwdriver. Can you guess what happened next? Yes, that's right, pretty soon I needed to buy a new fridge freezer.
Actually, I suppose I could have gotten away with trying to get this one repaired, but it's nine years old and I thought I should be able to find something at a reasonable price on the internet. A bit of googling later, and I found myself at Comet's Clearance Auction site, which is where they sell off ex-display models, or stuff that people have returned because it's got a scratch on it, or whatever.
The auctions were due to finish at 9pm tonight so at 8:45pm I logged in to see the state of play. I placed a bid on a fridge freezer at 8:55pm and, maybe a little surprisingly, no-one bid against me. No ebay-style last-minute dash here. All very civilised and refined. So I've just bought myself a Beko-something-or-other with a scratch on the front or side or whatever for £111 instead of the in-store price of £249. You may be able to tell I'm not that bothered about the model number or the features. As long as it keeps my food cool and fresh, that's all I care about. It could have come with zebra-print doors for all I care. In fact, that's not a bad idea. I might paint it when it arrives.
Even with the delivery charge on top (which I'd have to pay even if I'd bought it brand new from the store) and the price of a pot of black paint, that sounds like a bit of a bargain to me.
Following my comments at the start of the year, I thought it was about time I put one of them, at least, into action. Last Thursday I bought a Country Walking magazine, and was once again blown away by the breathtaking views this country has to offer. Right, I thought, this weekend I'm going for a walk. I'd spent the last two Sundays in deep prayer to the almighty god of laziness, just hanging around the house in my dressing gown, occasionally getting up to wash a plate or eat a bit of cheese or something. Not today. Today I was going for a walk, come hell or high water.
Fortunately the weather was on my side, and when I woke up at the crack of 10:30 (I'm a very religious person when it comes to worshipping the god of laziness) I noticed my curtains glowing brightly, as though someone had actually turned the light on outside. This is it. No excuses now. I going for a walk, and it was a walk with a purpose. I was going to head into town, to Halfords, and buy myself a foot-pump for the bike. I want to be fully prepared for when the god of strenuous exercise wakes up from his winter slumber and kicks the god of laziness into touch.
Although the weather was on my side, my body wasn't. My legs were screaming agony after half a mile, and I was beginning to doubt whether I'd make it into town. I pressed on, however, knowing full well that every step took me further away from my front door (and with it the sofa and kettle). I slowed down and carried on putting one foot in front of the other. My legs gave up screaming and settled into a dull whinging moan instead, which I eventually gave in to and turned round for home.
I didn't make it into town, didn't get as far as Halfords. But according to my GPS unit, I did walk two and a half miles, which after three months of walking no further than one end of the office to the other, isn't a bad start. I'm going to see if I can walk one and a half to two miles every day next week when I get home from work, and by next weekend my legs should have remembered what they are there for.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put the kettle on, collapse in a heap, and later on I'm going to drive to Halfords.
I've successfully upgraded the blog from Movable Type 2.661 to Movable Type 3.14..... first time, without a hitch. Now, what are the new features in version 3 again? Time to RTFM methinks...
Having watched the "Child of our time" programme on tv last night, which looked at the relationships between children and their fathers, I took the opportunity tonight to ask my son what he thought I was for. "Having fun and playing games on the computer" was his reply. I then asked him what mums were for.
"Making rules."
So looks like we're fairly typical, then!
My son has definately got a brain in his head. And he likes to put it to use, as well. He loves puzzles, and word games. I've been playing old adventure games with him on the computer recently, and although we don't spend a lot of time working out the puzzles (they are all old games to which I know the solutions) he'll sit on my lap for hours watching what I do and throwing in his two-pennorth occasionally. So far we've played The Neverhood (three times), Curse of Monkey Island (twice), Myst (once) and Riven (almost finished). What really impresses me is that when we go back to a game a few weeks later, he remembers how most of the puzzles work. Myst and Riven have really captured his imagination. They are full of magic "linking books" (a book you can use to travel to another world by jumping into a picture on the first page, much like Dick Van Dyke's pavement cartoonist jumped into his pictures in Mary Poppins), good guys, bad guys, fantastic scenery and animations, and he really immerses himself in the fantasy worlds he sees on the screen. Hopefully this sort of thing will stand him in good stead for logical thinking and creative imagination as he grows older. Either that or he'll bury his head in a PlayStation and not come out until the acne has cleared up.
I'm also blown away by his word power, and the way that he thinks about words. Even from a very young age (and don't forget he's still only five) he was aware of the effect of swapping one word for another ("Baa baa black sheep, have you any chocolate"). Recently we were playing some word games in the car. I asked him to think of some words beginning with "O". The first word he came up with was "orange". Fair enough. The second was "oxygen". Now where the hell did that one come from? I told him about anagrams, and illustrated the idea with some examples: rat, tar, art. Then I asked him if he knew what the shortest anagram in the English language was. I gave him the start word ("on") and after a few seconds he came up with the right answer. Pretty impressive, I thought. He thinks about the end of one words (or phrase) and the start of the next. He comes out with things like "cheesandwich" or "windowasher". After all, if the next word starts with the same letter as the last one, what's the point of saying the letter twice? As far as phrases go, he's come up with "run fast asleep" and "thank-u-cumber" amongst others. If he carries on like this he'll be a proficient blogger by the time he's 10 and a published author by the time he's 15. Hopefully!
But the more he explores language and words, the more I realise just how difficult English is. The other day he picked up a piece of paper and said: "L-O-O-T..... that spells lot". I corrected him, saying that the word was "loot", and that if you have two "o"'s together that's the sound they make. Then I realised they don't always make that sound. Door, moon and book all sound different (at least with my accent they do). So how can I tell him that it's correct in one case but wrong in another? And what about cough, bough, thorough and through? How can I explain that "bow" sounds one way when you're talking about a bow and arrow, and a completely different way when you're talking about the bow of a ship?
Dads are supposed to have all the answers. I'm rapidly realising that the older I get, the less I know.
Is there no end to the number of age-old pastimes that have been hijacked by the internet? Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to get out your virtual scissors and paper, hop over here, make your snowflake, and then let me know which one is yours :-)
I've made a start. Not a very good one, but a start nonetheless.
After the manic running around I've done for the last four weeks, I had a quiet day at work today. The chap at the software development company has a full workload now, and I'm trying to leave him alone for the rest of the week to get on with it, rather than blast him with more requests for tweaks and information.
I just hope he's been working on our project and not someone else's!
The blog got severely comment spammed yesterday. I checked my email to find about 200 comments had been added to the blog in the space of four hours. I've got Jay Allen's Movable Type Blacklist plugin installed, but even if the blacklist file is kept up-to-date some devious sods always manage to get through. Spent at least an hour tidying it all up and getting rid of the rubbish. Checked the blog activity log this morning to find that it has since blocked another hundred or so attempts to add comment spam. Hopefully I'm on top of that one, but trying to block it all is always going to be a firefighting exercise. Grrr.
Kudos to my son for making me forget all my worries in about three seconds flat this evening. As soon as I walked through the door he thrust a cushion in my hand, saying "that's your shield, Daddy, now let me get my sword and let's fight! Remember, if I hit you with the [cardboard tube] sword you have to fall down dead, ok?" What else could I say, but "ok"
So there I am, poised and ready for anything, defending myself with nothing but my sharp reactions and a cushion. "Come on, " I'm thinking, "do your worst!" However I forgot one thing. He's half my height, and a sneaky little swine as well. I'm busy holding my cushion out at arms length, ready to absorb the blow when he hurls himself headlong into me, when he suddenly whacks me on the shin with his cardboard tube, er, sword.
In surprise more than anything else I fall to my knees, a look of stunned amazement on my face. This causes my son to crack up, safe in the knowledge that he got one over his dad good and proper. The more I looked at him, my face saying "You cheeky little sod - that was cheating!", the more he creased up in fits of laughter. Oh, he was very full of himself, I can tell you. At one point he was lying on the floor on his stomach, thumping the carpet and laughing raucously. Laughter is, as you know, infectious, and within a few seconds I was on the floor with him. Completely carefree and loving the moment.
Later on we had a game of Jenga. I went first, then it was son's turn. He takes a block out from the very bottom of the tower and the whole thing crashes down. "Yay! I win!" he shrieks. "Actually," I tell him, "the point of the game is to NOT make the tower fall over." "Not in my rules", he said, once again ending the conversation completely in his favour.
As MasterCard would say, priceless.
It's a good job I didn't make a new year's resolution to write something on this blog every day this year, because I would have failed miserably. Trouble is, there doesn't seem to be that much going on in my life worth writing about at the moment. I could go on at great length about what's been happening at work, but stories of other bloggers being sacked for writing about their jobs kinda puts me off a little bit. But not completely, heheh.
I haven't seen or spoken to my manager since he walked out a month ago. He's signed off sick for a few weeks, and should be back in on Monday. In the meantime I am the IT department. Me. I'm it. Or I'm IT, if you're reading this looking for clever puns (that's January's pun out of the way, phew). Actually I'm not quite all on my own, all my phone calls are routed through someone else first since 90% of them can be handled quite adequately by another IT-savvy employee, and all the rest come from my ex-wife asking me for more money
However I'm supposed to be spending my time learning Microsoft Visual Studio. Although I have been doing some reading, it's admittedly been a bit half-hearted. Again, slow progress, but progress nonetheless.
Ho hum. See you next week, heheh.
Well, my son was better behaved towards the end of the christmas break than he was at the beginning. Just. He still asked for a present at every conceivable opportunity, but he just mumbled and grumbled and accepted his fate when we said there wasn't anything for him. Don't get me wrong, I love to buy him things, but there is a fine line between giving for the sake of giving, and spoiling a child. He likes to play adventure games with me on the computer (well, I download a cheat sheet and follow the game through, he just watches and offers suggestions) so I could get round this by buying myself some new games. For me, honest.
I did buy myself a little present over the break. If you can call a 1400-page book on programming Micosoft Visual Basic a present, ha ha. Or little. I ordered the book from price cut books uk via amazon on Wednesday evening and the postman tried to deliver it Friday morning. Now you can't argue with service like that, can you? Of course, with the New Year break getting in the way of things I wasn't able to pick it up from the sorting office until Tuesday morning, but still, can't complain. The book was slightly damaged (before delivery, I might add) which is why it was for sale at 15 quid instead of the rather extortionate RRP of £47.99. I'll definately be using these people again.
Good to see "Shameless" back on television. I don't watch that much TV, so a programme has to stand out for me to watch it every week. And Shameless is such a programme. I'm not much of a critic so I won't wax lyrical about it, but I recommend you check it out. As long as you don't mind a few choice four-letter words, of course.
Talking of which, did anyone else notice that Peter Cook seemed to be on TV a lot over Christmas? There was a programme about Derek and Clive (schoolboy toilet humour of the first degree), a drama about his career, a programme about the Secret Policeman's Ball on which he featured heavily, the "Comedian's comedian" which he won, plus one or two other programmes which escape me at the moment. I've nothing against celebrating the life and career of a talented man, but this seemed to be a bit over the top.
I keep doing the same thing every year. I keep telling myself that this year is going to be different, this is the year I'm going to get my act together and sort my life out once and for all. Last year I started with all the best intentions (in fact, I think some of them started in late 2003). I resolved to eat healthier food and do more exercise. Which I did, in a way, but nowhere near to the extent that i wanted to. I had visions of me working out on my multigym three times a week, of eating more vegetables and proper meat instead of the pre-packed pre-cooked pre-blanded saddo meal-for-one from the local supermarket, of building up my stamina and going for long walks up mountains and taking fantastic photographs of the view.
Here's my review of all my fads and fancies, with a rating on how well I think I did with each of them:
The multigym hasn't been touched in about 11 months, although I have occasionally (very occasionally) picked up the dumbells and lifted them up in the air a dozen or so times. Rating: 0.5 out of 10
Walking has been a reasonable success. I walked from home into Manchester once (a distance of 11 miles) and from Manchester nearly back home once (9 miles). I went to Anglesea for a walking holiday and did three walks, the longest of which was about 9 miles. But I stopped walking when the weather turned cold, and haven't left the house with the intention of walking for exercise since the end of October. Rating: 5 out of 10
I bought myself a new bike and went out on it a few times. Again, my feeble excuse for not cycling more has been the weather. Pathetic, I know, and must try harder this year. Rating: 4 out of 10
Food: I found that if I cooked myself a proper healthy meal with proper ingredients (i.e. steak, broccoli, carrots, boiled potatoes) I found I was cooking (and therefore eating) enough for two. So although I was getting all the nutrients I needed, I was eating more than I was before, so the extra pounds obviously didn't fall off me. Over the course of the year I have changed my eating habits slightly, hopefully for the better. I'm not buying bread any more which means I'm not constantly snacking on sandwiches. I'm taking a packed lunch to work most days which consists of hardboiled egg, piece of cheese, coleslaw, potato salad, raw carrot and a few slices of cucumber. So far so good :-) Still not losing weight, but not eating as much rubbish as in the past. Rating: 5 out of 10
Work: This is a recent addition to the "change of regime" plan. It's taken me far too long to realise that I'm not being challenged in my job, and that it doesn't pay me enough to have a decent lifestyle (as you may have noticed, all the hobbies I've mentioned so far are ones which don't exactly cost a fortune). So I'm doing something about that - teaching myself some new skills and hopefully getting a new job this year. rating: 3 out of 10 (score so low because I didn't start doing something about this until November)
Relationships: My divorce came through two years ago this month. I'm still single. I'm not sure if I mind being single or not, but due to various factors hinted at above, I've not exactly been going out of my way to find a new girlfriend. I don't like my weight, my teeth or my hair. I can't afford to take anyone out to dinner, let alone whisk them away to Paris for the weekend. If I don't think I'm a good catch, how can I expect anyone else to?
So my new year's resolution for 2005 is for self-improvement, both physically and mentally. I want to end the year with a job I enjoy doing, a social life, and a general feeling of self-worth and well-being. And now that I've said all that in public, I'd better stick to it!
Happy New Year :-)
