Category: Life

Lacking Somewhere

It’s been a little while since I last posted, so I thought that I’d better throw something up for 3 reasons.

  1. I’m sitting at a computer installing over 10 CDs worth of software, and extremely bored
  2. Lots is happening in my life, a great deal of which I can’t go into on this blog
  3. Some stuff does happen, but I’m always too busy, and so I end up forgetting.

Well, no more! One of the core reasons for less posting is that this blog is fundamentally self-serving. I use it mainly for my own reference, so that if I need to do something IT-related I can load up the blog. Likewise, if I’m talking to someone I sometimes say, “I had that problem – search for it on my blog.” It’s a doddle. The investment in time is always a catch, though, and so I sometimes slip up and not post for a while.

So a rundown on cool things that I’m keeping an eye on or doing is coming right up.

Jon Collins, an Internet Hero

A fellow Marillion and Fish fan, Jon Collins recently posted that he’d sort me out a curry after comparing Fish’s new album 13th Star to cooking.

As I’m inept at cooking, I’ll take his word for it – but I thought I’d check out Mr. Collins’ credentials in a proper style. Readers of this blog (ha! I couldn’t resist that one) might recognise the name from my post about the Marillion biography ‘Separated Out‘.

Still, I checked out the A Collection website, to see what he has to say for himself there, a lo, there’s a link to his blog! There’s nothing like a blog to get a feel for a person.

Indeed, I can pin Mr. Collins down as an IT baking, cookery skewing, hedgehog mowing genius. And he likes Marillion of course.

So, well done to Jon Collins for being him, and when he’s in, or near Margate, I can expect a nice curry!

Weird happenings in the world of a 2-year old

Now, I want to begin by saying that I don’t believe in psychics.

I don’t believe in phenomenal paranormal abilities.

I don’t believe that there’s an angel hanging around telling you stuff.

Or ghosts, magical ferrets, or psychotic leprechauns.

OK – so you get the message. I’m a logical guy. I believe that everything has an explanation grounded in life, even if the evidence (or lack thereof – an important point) suggests otherwise.

But here’s the thing that shook me and made me wonder the other day:

I woke up on a wonderful weekend morning, knowing that the only ‘job’ I had for the day was putting some old baby gear in the loft that some friends had borrowed for a little while. My am reverie was shattered with my son who is almost 3 years old asking for a “time truck”.

“Sorry boy, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” As I looked over to Claire in puzzlement. We exchanged shrugs.

Throughout the morning, he was insistent. “Time truck.” What’s a time truck? After a little while Claire turned to me and said, “It could be that sit-on baby walker thing that he used to ride on.”

I mused on that. It had a toy clock on the front that you could turn the hands on. I suppose it could be considered a ‘Time Truck’. It has the time, and it’s truck-esque (and it seems that all boys like trucks and diggers as opposed to boring old cars), and John did play on it. But the toy had been in the loft for over a year. It seemed odd that he suddenly started going on about it. I said that I might get it out of the loft when I went up later in the day.

So the time came around and I climbed up and opened the loft-hatch. As it swung down, a small green object fell out of the loft and almost clobbered me. It was a toy phone, and you guessed it, it lived with his “time truck”. That itself was precariously sat on top of the ladder ready to fall down and bash me too.

My mind started racing, and even now I can’t figure the connection between that toy being stuck in the loft hatch, and how my son had suddenly started going about it. He didn’t know I was going into the loft that day.

Spooky, eh?