Categories
Parenting

Sunday

Last night was my turn to put Bernard to bed. After reading him his stories, I tucked him up in bed and sat down to read mine.

This is a process that takes at least an hour. Initially. he’ll spend a few minutes doing some dances in bed. Then he’ll lie there for a while. Then he’ll request mama’s presence. Then he’ll ask for some water. Then he’ll throw his duvet out of bed. Then he’ll twist and squirm for a while. And eventually he’ll get out of bed, come over, and lie down on top of me.

There was a moment last night when he was lying on his back on my chest, the side of his face pressed against mine, counting occurrences of the letter C on the page that I was reading. For those few minutes, I had a sensation of unreality, like I’d been transported into someone else’s world. If life is a rollercoaster ((just gotta ride it (all night long) )), then the carriage had briefly lost contact with the tracks. It struck me with a great force that this is my son, his face pressed against mine. That he has grown so much already, and will continue to grow so much more. That he adores and admires me, and that I adore and admire him.

Yesterday we flew a kite. Bernard wanted to hold the handle, and I wanted him to as well. Yeah, he let go of it and the kite went soaring across the field and into the allotments from where it had to be rescued by Karen. Doesn’t matter. Sure, next time I’ll be a bit smarter and I’ll have some secondary anchoring system as a fallback. But for those few seconds he was feeling the pull of the kite up in the sky for the first time, and there was no way that I was going to deny him that.

(The strong winds meant that my hands took a couple of minor injuries whilst being battered about by the chunky handle. The thumb on my left hand is still a little sore, and still bears a small scab. Occasionally Bernard will ask to see “daddy bump kite” and has a look at my scab)

Categories
Meander Useful Information

Systematic use of a diary

At the end of May I received my new Moleskine diary. It runs from July 2008 to the end of December 2009. Here’s an image that I used back then:

Moleskine Unboxing 07

Look at those red fingers. Either I had sunburn, or I’m crap with photo editing software.

As you can see, the left hand page is divided horizontally into seven sections. The top one is basically unallocated, the next five are Monday to Friday, and the last one is divided vertically for Saturday and Sunday. The right hand page is narrowly ruled.

I’ve adopted the following system.

I use the top section of the left hand page for all-week reminders. For instance, if I’m on holiday that week, then I write it in there.

I then use the other sections on that page for appointments and tasks that need to be done on a certain day. I also use it to keep records of things like important letters sent or major purchases made on that day.

On the right hand page, I keep a todo list for non-urgent tasks. I start from the bottom of the page and work my way up. To the left of each item is a space for a tick (when the task is completed), cross (if the task is no longer necessary) or an arrow (if the task remains unfinished at the end of the week and needs carrying forward to the next week).

The space at the top of the right-hand page is then free for general notes and ideas.

This system is working out really well for me. Maybe you can use it as the basis for your own system! Oh, the pleasure!

Categories
Computing

Cuilapse

Perhaps you are familiar with Cuil, the search engine that was announced on Monday to the accompaniment of a lot of fanfare. People flocked to the site to find out more about this search engine that was designed by ex-Google employees and was going to knock Google off of the top spot. The site, naturally, collapsed.

When it finally did come back up, it was catastrophically bad. Searches for terms such as “rabbit” and “porcupine” returned zero results. It had other problems too (not safe for work).

We’ve all had a nice laugh about it during the last couple of days, but only this morning have I finally realised the truth.

Cuil was not designed by ex-Google employees. It was designed by current Google employees. It’s a covert operation that has been concocted to send out the following message to would-be competitors: “Do not try to beat us. You will lose.”

Categories
Food Gardening Photos

Potatoes

potatoes

Categories
Music Gear Photos

How to make an amp cover on the cheap

When the time comes when you need to carry your amp a short distance through a rain shower, you’ll find yourself wishing that you had a nifty means of keeping it dry. You can buy a fitted cover for a tidy sum, or throw something together on the cheap that does an adequate job.

My bass amp

This is my new bass amp – an Ashdown Electric Blue 12-180. You can get a fitted cover for £35 but I’m making one out of a spare Ikea shopping bag that cost 25p.

Continue reading “How to make an amp cover on the cheap”
Categories
My Bands

Shiny Tight Stuff

*Much of the information here is redundant, since I’ve already written one extensive blog post on this subject, but I’m rewriting it here so as to follow the structure established in the first post in this series.*

Who were we?

* **Craig** played guitar and wrote songs. As time went by, he also developed a role as vocalist.
* **Nathan** played keyboards and sang backing vocals. He also had occasional turns as songwriter and lead vocalist.
* **Jim** was the drummer.
* and I played bass, wrote songs and sang vocals. Initially I did all the singing, but my role gradually decreased as Craig gained confidence, and when Nathan joined the band.

How did we meet?

Craig, Nathan and I all went to secondary school together. The story of how I met Craig is chronicled elsewhere on this site, but we didn’t become good friends until five years later, and we formed the band quite soon after that.

For a brief period, the band also included a friend of Craig’s called Martin. He joined us for a couple of gigs (second and third) and an album, but the less said about that, the better.

Nathan was a good friend of mine who I had known since I was 11 years old. Once the band had been going for about a year, he joined us as an occasional live musician, and eventually became a full-time member. Craig met Jim at college, after we’d all left school – the band had been going for about two years at that point.

Continue reading “Shiny Tight Stuff”
Categories
Gardening

Not tadpoles then

Remember my tadpoles?

We’ve downgraded them from “tadpole” to “mosquito larvae”.

As you can imagine, we’re being slightly less hospitable these days.

Categories
Music Gear

He brought his dog too

As I mentioned a while ago, I was considering selling my big bass stack. I decided to go ahead, and the buyer came to collect it this evening. He arrived just after 8pm, and I let him in to look at the rig. I plugged it in so that he could verify that it was all in working order, though obviously he couldn’t turn it up very loud because my son was being put to sleep upstairs. He gave me the money in £20 notes, which was perfect (one of my concerns had been that he’d try to pay me in mixed denominations).

“Might have to take it in two trips” he said.

“What kind of car have you brought?” I asked.

“Nissan Micra” he said.

“Ah” I replied.

Not only had he come round in a Nissan Micra, but he’d also brought his ladyfriend. I also discovered, as we took the first cab out to the street, that his chihuahua had come along too. He’d also brought his bass along, and the floor of his boot was scattered with cassette tapes and batteries (to which I remarked words to the effect of “uh, do you want to tidy this up, or should I just crush it with this 80lb cabinet?) The most startling thing of all was that it fit in the car. A snug fit, admittedly, but I was still impressed. The boot closed and everything.

I just hope that he drove home gently. A severe bump could have pushed one of those cabinets through his read windscreen.

An era ends.

Bike bags

I’ve finally managed to get round to doing something about storage on my bike (that’s *on* my bike, not *for* my bike). Here are the problems that I was facing:

1. I was arriving at work with a ferociously sweaty back. This is because I have to carry all my gear around in a rucksack. Fitting a pannier wasn’t an option, as it would get in the way of Bernard’s bike seat (unless I then purchased an additional pannier-mounted bike seat, or took the pannier off every time I wanted to attach the bike seat).
2. Slightly smaller gripe – I needed somewhere to keep my keys. Having to take off my rucksack and fish around in the small front pocket was getting tiring.

I now have solutions. The solution to problem #2 is quite simple – I’ve purchased a Topeak top tube bag ((J E James are now out of stock of these, but you can also get them here – there’s a better photo there too)). This has space in the main pocket for my wallet, keys and allen keys, and my phone fits in the side pocket. You can also get larger bags that go under the saddle, and in retrospect perhaps I should have bought one of those instead, as I would then have also had space in it for my diary. Maybe I’ll put that on my birthday list ((already on my birthday list – a decent battery charger. Life is too short for timer-based chargers)).

The solution to problem #1 is slightly more complex, and I’ve been mulling on it for a while. What I have done is to purchase a spare support bar for the child seat. This fits in the same mounting point as Bernard’s seat and provides me with a platform to strap the rucksack to. In the long run, I might replace the rucksack with a more suitable container.

Incidentally, you can consider this to be a endorsement of J E James. I ordered on Tuesday afternoon and the stuff arrived on Friday morning. Delivery was free (for all orders over £5), so the price on the site is what you pay (unlike the gits at X-Case who listed Karen’s new computer case at £32.50 on the site, but when it came to checkout they added £8.95 for P&P and then another £7.25 VAT, bringing the total to £48.70). I’ve done a bit of online inspectigation and found a forum thread where some people have been complainining about their tendency to misrepresent stock levels so that might be something to bear in mind.

Categories
Critters Top Photos

Sunny afternoon

This afternoon, Bernard and I went for a walk ((usually this is defined as “I walked while he sat in his orange pushchair and watched the world go by”, but on this occasion, I mean it in the more conventional sense)). We stood on the railway bridge and waited for trains to pass under us.

church

Then we went through the churchyard and on to the park, where we witnessed some life-affirming graffiti.

postitive graffiti

On the way back we shared a Mr Whippy. We saw a moth that seemed to still be just barely alive, but this minor fact was of no significance to the ants.

moth