Hey! what's happening?

Wow.

Life seems to be racing past these days. Right now all I am thinking about is getting some extra sleep tomorrow morning.

Christmas is just 2 weeks away and I already feel the excitement mixed with anxiety ahead of the big close down for the holidays.

It has been a mad year. I changed roles in my job and my youngest son started big school so we don't really have a baby any more. The two boys grow up just a little bit more every day and I'm really enjoying their company at this stage. The older one is really interested in football and wants to talk about it all day. That suits me but kind of drives his mother crazy.

I've really worked hard to try and keep in touch with all the people that I want to keep in touch with but it's just impossible to get around to everyone and even to fire off the occasional email is tricky. I only hope at Christmas that people will be around and that I can bump into people here and there and catch up with them. I also hope that people won't think that I am slighting them just because I have not managed to keep in touch the way I would have wanted.

Life has spat out a few tough moments this year too. It has not been all rosy, that's for sure. But it's good to be alive, healthy and still smiling somehow.

It would be great to hear how m. and Stephen Smart and Al and the others who have written great blog posts over the years are doing these days. If it's hard to find time to keep in touch with friends and loved ones then it's even more difficult to keep a blog updated. Look at me.. I am a disaster at keeping this thing up to date.

Maybe nobody comes here anymore to read this anyway and I am conducting some kind of online secret dialogue with myself. Maybe I could post my deepest thoughts and darkest secrets here and no-one would know.

See you soon.

Life without an office

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if we all lived where we worked. In the old days people worked in a job that was based on a skill, craft or trade of some kind, usually tied in some way to a premises or workshop with specialised machinery or something like that. And at the end of the day you went out back or upstairs to make some dinner or relax for the rest of the day with your family.

In those days we had no office buildings, no factories, no commuting or apartment blocks.

It's interesting to me to imagine a world where communities are smaller, closer and simpler. Without the trappings of so-called modern life, the trappings of so-called progress.

The opposite of hoarding

I wonder why I hoard things. I mean we all seem to hoard things these days, and for me as I look across the room I'm sitting in I seem to hoard books, DVDs, CDs and all manner of stuff. I also ave an awful lot of ties.

And then there's my iPod. I have heaps of stuff on it, music, videos and all that sort of thing. Don't get me started on digital photos..

But what would it be like if one day we all decided to do a bit of a purge. Instead of keeping everything (or a copy of stuff) we all decided to get rid of everything. Clearing out bookcases, wiping disks and so on until there was only the real right now experience of life. Would that really be such a bad thing?

I think this idea came from watching something odd happen in Spain earlier this summer. I was sitting on a bench on a little cobbled street one night in July. My sons sat next to me eating ice pops. I watched a group of teenagers take their places around a table outside a restaurant, all chatting and laughing as they ordered and waited for their food. One young guy stood up and took a picture of the group and then proceeded to show everyone the picture of themselves taken just 10 seconds previously.

Why do we do that? Why do we waste time taking and reviewing pictures of what we are supposed to be actually experiencing? why do we need to keep a record of stuff like this? isn't that what our memories are for?

I'm blathering on. Anyway I need to go and throw some stuff out.

it sure has been a while

The time is flying and life continues to be interesting.

Last weekend I took the family away for the weekend to Galway. No particular reason for the trip. Just wanted to get away before the schools start up again.

We stayed in a hotel on the edge of the city and it had a marvellous pool and leisure centre. Our kids have never been interested in swimming but for some reason we felt that this might be the weekend that this changed. And it did.

We had packed arm-bands, goggles and swim hats (and swimming trunks for the boys) and they really surprised us. On the morning of the saturday the older guy was straight into the pool while the younger guy just wouldn't even consider it. I managed to talk him into getting changed into his trunks and once he had done that he was into the water like a little duckling.

They spent 2 hours in the pool that morning and then wanted to go back in later that evening, this time for an hour.

We left sunday morning but not before another quick dip into the pool.

Brilliant.

Really busy in work and such interesting days these days. Change on the horizon too.

my 5 year old wants to vote

There's no way of knowing what goes on in the mind of a child. My 5 year old (to be fair he is only 4.56 years old but considers himself sophisticated enough to be a 5 year old) casually noted today that he intends to vote for Alex White in the upcoming elections in Ireland.

Clearly he can't vote but he does intend to vote for Alex White when he is old enough. I suspect Alex will not be actively campaigning then. Too bad.

I suspect that he likes the name Alex (his best friend is called Alex, his cousin is called Alex and one of the main characters in Madagascar 2 is called Alex) though he may indeed have a deep appreciation for politics.

I don't know why I'm nervous

Re my previous post..

I don't know why but I am nervous about calling.

My head is full of lots of daft stuff these past few weeks.. you wouldn't believe what has been going on.

I am SUPER-indecisive these days. I know what is triggering it but I'm struggling to park it.

I am delighted for the person in question but am not in the right frame of mind to say what it is I mean to say.

I'm guessing that none of this is making sense.

I need to go for a walk in the mountains perhaps. Clear my head.

A little bird

A little bird tells me that a former colleague of mine is expecting her first baby...

I am so delighted for her and her husband, more than she can know.

I will call her later this week to say hi.

Now I want brownies

Come to think of it, I'd actually really like to bake (and eat) a whole pile of brownies. Trouble is I don't have a decent recipe.

If anyone has a decent recipe that is fool-proof (no, really.. I mean it) I'd love to get a copy or maybe point me to a link somewhere.

I'm looking for a recipe that is easy to make and hard to mess up. Also I am in Ireland so I don't have access to Semi-sweet tollhouse chocolate morsels or stuff like that.

I tried making flapjacks some time ago and they tasted like muck.

CHiPs and Pot

My two sons are suddenly into watching CHiPs again. Remember CHiPs. Of course you do. That timeless TV show from the late seventies and early eighties. Two motorcycle cops on patrol on the highways of California. Yes that's the one.

Well yours truly is a fan. I mean I was a fan when it was on the TV. I was only a young lad then of course.

Some time ago it was showing again on one of those channels that plays endless re-runs of The Dukes of Hazzard or The A-Team. One saturday morning it was on and I paused briefly out of nostalgia and my little boys were hooked.

That led to me buying the DVD of season 1 which we all watched and loved. Then season 2 came out on DVD but by that time they had kind of moved on to Mario Kart and there I was all alone with my green-coloured box set.

Until this weekend that is. They just asked to watch it and have watched a fair few episodes over the weekend.

There is one that really stands out. The one where Jon and Ponch fall foul of a bunch of frat kids on their way back from mexico with a bag of the old fella.

It all ends rather bizarrely with the frat kids making a batch of hash brownies an trying to slip them into the Highway Patrol's cake sale. Needless to say Jon and Ponch save the day and the brownies end up on the ground unfit for consumption by the fine citizens of California.

Excellent.