write.as/jonbeckett

A support call came in late yesterday – reporting that something didn’t appear to be working correctly on a client site. It got assigned to me. Everything gets assigned to me at the moment, on account of me having the most flame retardant underpants, it seems. The project involved wasn’t written by me (they never are), and the original developer no longer works here (thank f*ck). I promised to look into it first thing this morning. While I said “first thing”, I actually meant “when I get around to it” – and because of the curiously stupid kind of person I am, that really was first thing, and I then spent FIVE HOURS looking into it.

Looking at other people’s programming is interesting – and by “interesting”, I really mean “horrifying”. I’m not going to get all lofty and long haired lecturer about it – let’s just say it wasn’t good in a “I didn’t write it, therefore it is rubbish” kind of way. I ended up re-building the client system from scratch inside a virtual machine to replicate the problem – and I *did *replicate it – but evidently not caused by the same root cause, because when I triumphantly announced I had solved it, the client quietly emailed me back with words to the effect of “erm. Nope.”

Another hour later I finally stumbled upon the cause of ALL of it.

It transpired that somebody had been fiddling. A setting had been changed deep in the innards of the system the software was installed on, which caused it to go spectacularly, and silently wrong. Nobody could have guessed of course that flicking a certain switch would have caused everything to start misbehaving – much like nobody has ever understood why a certain light switch in our kitchen causes the fuse box to trip.

Now please excuse me while I go and headbutt a wall somewhere for a while.

It’s heading towards 10pm, and I have acheived very little this evening other than eat a curry, an entire family bag of peanut M&Ms, and drink half a bottle of cheap white wine. I stopped at the supermarket on my way home from work this evening. I didn’t plan on buying wine, but my eyes were drawn to a bottle that was on offer as I passed it en-route to the ready meals.

There was a gaunt Indian gentleman walking aimlessly between the supermarket shelves, coughing like his lungs were about to depart his body. A pretty lady was walking backwards away from him, and almost crashed into me. I held my breath as I passed – I haven’t had a cough or a cold for months; it would be just my luck to get something in time for my vacation.

At the end of next week I have two weeks off. We’re not actually going anywhere – the kids have various holiday clubs going on, and there’s a mountain of work to get through in the garden. I’m hoping to chop down the hazelnut tree, and stack the logs behind the shed. I haven’t told my other half yet. I think she might have a fit. I’m thinking we can turn the base of the trunk into a throne much like the one in Game of Thrones. Maybe that idea will sway her?

We were planning on visiting my parents down in Cornwall for a few days, but with all the other stuff going on, we turned to each other and said “we haven’t had a break at all, have we” – so emailed my Mum and Dad and told them. I imagine they are probably relieved too, because the kids are kind of like a wall of noise and mayhem that trashes everything in it’s path.

I was going to sit and watch a movie this evening, but it’s already 10pm, and I’ll most likely fall fast asleep on the sofa – or spend an hour choosing a movie, and then realise it’s too late to bother starting. I began watching a Tommy Lee Jones movie about the end of the Second World War last night – something about General MacArthur and the decision to try the Japanese Emperor for war crimes or not. I made it an hour in before thinking “this movie is garbage”, and heading to bed. I’ve done that a lot recently.

Whenever I see Tommy Lee Jones, I expect him to reach inside his lapel and pull out a gigantic alien weapon of some kind.

Speaking of Aliens, can you imagine Aliens landing B-Movie style on the White House lawn while Trump is in charge? I can’t. Well – I can, and that’s what scares me. I suppose if a similar species to us is clever enough to get here from wherever (or whenever), they would also be clever enough not to get involved while so many idiots are in charge of so many countries.

I wonder if “Fright Night” is on Netflix ?

The clock is ticking towards 9pm, and I have done nothing all evening. Actually, that’s not entirely true. After returning from work I hung a load of washing on the line, put another load in the machine, cooked a pizza for dinner, ate the pizza, walked to the garage, bought ice cream for a planned late night movie marathon, then sat on the couch watching a forgettable TV show on Amazon called “Awkward” for an hour. After so many years living in a house filled with mayhem, I don’t deal with the absence of others very well any more. I guess there is a correlation of sorts with my much storied struggles sitting at tables for one in restaurants when travelling with work. Being home alone is somehow different though – I’m not sure I can describe how it’s different.

I’m used to the radio being on in the kitchen, cartoons being on the TV in the lounge, a video game rumbling through the floor from upstairs, along with spirited arguing from the protagonists playing it. I’m used to kids running through the kitchen to the back garden, for another go on the trampoline, and a mountain of tea and coffee cups appearing in the sink every time you turn your back. I’m used to the washing machine and tumble dryer running all evening continuously, and spending half an hour after dinner washing dishes, and cleaning worktops.

None of that is happening.

I do have a few animals to look after while “home alone”, I suppose.

The cats wander in and out as it pleases them, and make a gigantic nuisance of themselves when they are either hungry or cold. This morning I wandered down to the kitchen in my underwear and was greated by both George and Sam – our surviving brothers – meowing at me, and instantly turning their purring up to motorbike levels as I poured food into their bowls.

Goldfish aren’t really interactive, are they – although they know that on a morning they need to congregate in whichever corner is closest to the approaching human (me), because that causes the lid of the fishtank to be raised, and food to be dumped into the water. They have learned this after much experimentation.

Finally we have “Totoro” – the russian hamster belonging to our eldest daughter. I have a written list of instructions to follow this week – fresh food and water every day, and he can have his sand bath for one night only. I almost forgot to feed him last night – by the time I did, he almost ripped the food from my fingers to stuff in his cheeks before it landed in the bowl.

It always seemed a bit strange to call a hamster “Totoro”, when everybody knows that Totoros are gigantic, and sleep in the undergrowth at the end of the garden.

No, this post is not going to be about the Michael Douglas movie from the 1990s where an average guy goes on the rampage and holds up a fast food restaurant because his burger doesn’t look like the one in the picture. This post is going to be about me falling on my backside last night. There I was, being Mr “Chorey Mc Chore Pants”, taking the rubbish out, washing up, loading the washing machine, folding clothes, and so on – running here, there, and everywhere. Everything was going so well until I threw a pizza in the oven, and made my way out to the rubbish bins, barefoot, to put the cardboard box in the recycling bin.

I should perhaps mention at this point that the front of our house has a pretty even coating of moss across the concrete surrounding it – due to being in shade all day, and water escaping the roof during the day. Every few years we clear it, but at the moment, it’s like a soft, thin carpet.

Guess what happens when it rains for 18 of the previous 24 hours, and you walk barefoot onto saturated moss ? I’m pretty sure a faerie magicked an invisible roller-skate onto my right foot. Before I knew it, I was on the floor, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. As I went down, most thoughts went into my right knee that twisted underneath me, and slammed into the ground hard.

After getting up, and looking to see if anybody saw me make an idiot of myself, I checked to make sure I hadn’t injured myself too badly – both legs seemed to be bending in the correct direction. I gingerly made my way to the bin, dropped off the cardboard, and made my way back indoors. That’s when I noticed not only a pocket full of moss, but also a stream of blood coming from both my leg, and my foot.

Turns out I’m not invincible then.

After cleaning up, I really didn’t think too much about the injuries until this morning. I happily hobbled around the house drinking wine, eating pizza, and even cut the lawn after dinner. This morning was a different matter though.

I should have taken a photo. I had the best cartoon bruise on my left knee. Bending the knee made it stick out alarmingly – so much so that I wondered if I would be able to get to work (remember I cycle) – although I think that was more of a “can I blag a day off” thought, than a “I’m seriously injured” thought.

Let’s see if I can make it through the rest of the week without any further incidents, shall we ?

It struck me recently that I’m surrounded by a world of things I don’t really need. Miscellaneous gadgets, books, pens, pencils, computers, tablets, phones, wires, chargers, memory sticks, hard drives, and so on. I need to have a serious de-clutter.

Do I really need the old netbook computer any more? No. What about the Moleskine notebook that I’ve not written in for the last six months? No. How about the Filofax that has sat in the bottom of my bag for the last two weeks? No. I don’t really even need the old desktop computer at home that I invariably sit at while writing blog posts. The monitor is third hand, and is starting to fail anyway.

It’s not just material things though – it’s memberships of all the so-called “social” things on the internet too. Do I need accounts at both Instagram and Flickr? No. Do I need a blog at Wordpress, and at Tumblr? No. What about keeping ridiculously neat lists of blogs you follow at Wordpress, Feedly, and BlogLovin? Madness.

I need to start stopping things, if that makes any sense. Concentrate on being present in perhaps one or two social things, and stick to just two or three things in my bag – maybe just the phone, the tablet, and the Chromebook. Nothing else.

I’ve been tempted to dump the smart phone for a few months and see how I get on with an old “candy bar” phone – I’m only too aware the reason I haven’t read a book in months is the damn phone. For half an hour after going to bed I will flip through news stories, read emails, and vanish down social network rat-holes. Years ago I would have read books during that time. Good books.

I try to convince myself that the smart phone has a great camera – that I would miss taking photos of things along the way. I don’t curate those photos though – I share them, and they join the two mile high pile of stuff I’m dragging along behind me in the cloud. I’m wondering if it might not be better to go back to a camera, and actively curate the photos I have taken when storiing them, instead of the camera automatically throwing everything into a digital dustbin all day long.

Who knows – perhaps the first generation to embrace the “social internet”, and the various gadgets connected to it will also be the first generation to reject it.

The younger children are at Guide Camp for the week – somewhere on the coast – and my other half is visiting the Lake District for a few days – at the opposite end of the country. For the first time in at least perhaps a decade, I’m going to find myself home alone this week. When I mentioned my situation to co-workers a few minutes ago they started to enthuse about the pizza, beer, and video game opportunities opening up before me. They obviously don’t realise quite how much my other half might trash the house while last-minute-packing this morning (she leaves at lunchtime). I can confidently guarantee that I will arrive home this evening to a house that looks like it’s been ransacked by burglars.

There is also a washing line full of clothes out in the garden that I forgot to take in last night. The weather obviously has a sense of humour, because having watched me put everything through the washing machine over the weekend, it obviously noticed my mistake, and summoned several million gallons of water to fall on the hereabouts overnight. Wonderful.

One particular co-worker – who has no children and therefore no concept of “being broke all the time” – offered the idea of eating out every night. Yes, before children we used to do that quite regularly. We knew how good all the reasonably priced restaurants and pubs in town were, because we regularly met at them with friends and laughed all night about having no responsibilities. That all stopped nearly ten years ago. My life now consists of calling home every night after work to see if we need anything, and buying ingredients from the supermarket en-route to help cook something when I get home.

Last Friday night I contemplated calling a delivery service to get food for myself and the children. My other half was out for the night, and I had been running here there and everywhere clearing up the mess they had wrought after finishing school for the summer earlier in the day. I got half-way through choosing food for us all, saw the total cost spiraling upwards, and cycled into town to buy food from the supermarket to cook.

Once upon a time I lived alone, in my own apartment. Buying food for one person is actually incredibly expensive, because you can’t eat the food you might buy in bulk quickly enough before it goes off. The alternative of course is to cook in bulk and then freeze everything – that’s how I learned to make spaghetti bolognese and chilli con carne. Maybe I’ll make a couple of things tonight, and then ration them out over the week.

Or maybe I’ll just buy some pizzas. Don’t judge me.

The first teaser trailer of the “Ready Player One” movie was released yesterday, and although I’m looking forward to it, I’ll already admit to being downhearted in lots of ways. While the trailer has lots of things going for it – the obvious quality of the special effects, the music, and so on – it also immediately confirms something that Stephen Spielberg said early on in an interview – that a lot of the pop culture references from the book would be replaced due to licensing and/or narrative issues.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiK2fhOY0nE&w=854&h=480] I’m caught between a rock and a hard place on all of the references, because they are so important both to “nerd culture”, and to the plot in the book. Just as a small example, it’s obvious from the movie trailer that the Iron Giant is going to replace the obscure japanese mecha from the book – or maybe even Ultraman. I imagine they are the tip of a fairly big iceberg. On the other hand, it’s great to hear Rush in the trailer – because they are a huge part of the book too.

In many cases, there are very good reasons to change the references – the book has the time to go sideways into length expositions about Wade’s research into sometimes very obscure pop culture references from the 1980s in search of Halliday’s easter eggs. You can’t do that in a movie without either boring everybody to death, or making it into three or four movies.

Perhaps the most maddening thing is the army of idiots suddenly commenting on the movie trailer all over the internet that have not read the book, and will not read the book. It makes you want to pick them up and shake them – they are missing out on so much. They won’t understand who the Samurai character is standing behind the Iron Giant, they won’t understand the floating dance scene, and certainly not the key at the end of the trailer.

Here’s the thing though – in many ways reading the book will destroy the movie for most people, because the book is so good, and because there was never any way they could turn the book into a movie – not without gutting it, and changing it considerably – which it appears is exactly what has happened.

Yesterday evening my other half headed out to a local music festival with her brother, and I had planned to have a quiet night in with my daughters – watch a movie, eat popcorn, and not do much on purpose. That’s not quite how things panned out. While sitting at work yesterday a message appeared from a friend asking if I might like to visit in the evening – they were ordering take-away, and I would be welcome to join them. I explained my plans, but left the door half-open – “you never know – I might need a drink later”.

At about 9pm last night I decided it might be fun to go see them after-all. Within half an hour I had jumped in the shower, changed clothes, and arrived at their door. I vaguely remember drinking a lot of wine, and eating leftover curry (I had already eaten several hours earlier with the girls). I also remember being told all about a succession of iPad games by our friend’s youngest son – I think he took a shine to me because I showed an interest. He was also massively impressed that I knew the names of lots of dinosaurs.

I arrived back home at about 11pm, greeted by the sight of our eldest daughter crouched on the kitchen floor in her pyjamas, her head under a cupboard.

“Are you ok?”

“The cats have brought a mouse in – it’s under here – I’m trying to catch it”

I quickly explained that she would have no chance catching a wild mouse, and set about clearing the route from it’s hiding place to the back door. We then started lifting things up to “encourage” it to run – and run it did, like a missile – over the step, and out into the darkness. Poor little thing. I half expected one of our cats to be sitting outside in the garden, waiting. Cats are good at waiting.

I woke this morning at 7am, and half expected to have a colossal hangover. Somehow I had gotten away with it, and scraped myself out of bed – calling on our youngest daughters to get up. They were departing for Guide Camp for a week – so there were checklists to be gone through, packing to be finalised, breakfasts to be eaten, and lots of shouting to be done.

Two hours later we waved goodbye to a coach full of Girl Guides at the local church hall. They are off to camp on the coast, sing songs, cook over open fires, and do whatever else girl guides do. We returned home to a very quiet house.

Next on my itinerary for the day was a shopping trip to buy Miss 16 clothes from the outward-bound place in town (she’s off walking in the Lake District next week), buy a poncho for my other half (who was heading back to the music festival, which was forecast horrific rain all day), and get food for dinner. I will admit to also ducking into the phone shop en-route to see if the Nokia 3310 had arrived in stock yet.

Miss 16 likes it when I go clothes shopping with her. I have a knack of finding things on the rails that will suit her. It never occurs to her that we might know her at all well, and might have a brain in our head. Of course the main reason she likes me being with her is “The Bank of Dad”…

This afternoon has been strange. With my other half gone until the early hours of tomorrow morning, and only Miss 16 for company, the house is really quiet. The strangest experience is rooms remaining as you left them. When we are all here, the entire house is kind of like a game of Boggle – where it’s entire contents get shaken up every time you turn your back.

I fell asleep on the sofa for an hour this afternoon. I can’t remember the last time I did that. Usually there will be a knock on the door every ten minutes – some neighborhood kid or other asking if one of ours is going out to play (or the little boy from across the road trying to sneak in to play video games).

While writing this the cooker is on, baking a shepherd’s pie. I have to go put the vegetables on in a minute. Myself and Miss 16 are going to sit on our own in the lounge and watch rubbish on the TV all evening while eating ourselves to a standstill, and it’s going to be brilliant. I don’t think I can face any more wine though.

No, the photo accompanying this post is not of my desk – it may as well be though. Why get on with work, when you could quite easily spend all afternoon arranging everything on your desk into neat lines, and take arty photos of the stuff ? Unless you have something specific to get on with, working from home is hard. There is coffee you could be making, washing you could be putting in the machine, dishes you could be unloading from the dishwasher – not to mention a world of daytime television to discover.

I have a browser tab open with work email in it. I’m keeping half an eye on it. Honest. In another browser tab I have Spotify open, playing the “Favorite Coffee House” playlist. I just realised my coffee mug is empty – I wonder how many consecutive cups of cappuccino you can drink before some sort of manic episode occurs ?

I’m “working” from home because our youngest daughter is due home from school any time now. She goes to an out-of-town school with transport provided. I just wanted to be here when she got in, and luckily work is quiet today (unlike yesterday when I wanted to start burning a certain client’s office to the ground).

It never ceases to amaze me how different people can be. Yesterday I went to hell and back in the space of a couple of hours, and yet this morning I got an email from quite possibly the nicest client I have ever worked with – wishing me a great weekend after I answered her helpdesk call quickly. Go figure.

I sometimes miss working within a bigger company. Being a consultant – out on the road a lot, living in hotels, talking to rooms full of strangers, teaching, sharing knowledge, writing specifications, and solving problems is kind of a lonely and stressful life at the best of times. I miss turning up, and working to make one system better – month after month, year after year. I used to work for a big manufacturing company, and designed and built most of their systems – from pre-sales, right through to stock control.

Anyway. Writing this isn’t getting much done, is it. Not that I have a lot to do this afternoon. I think the washing machine has probably finished…

My parents are by most people’s standards, “independently wealthy”. Our family had a family business when I was growing up – a pretty major quarry that made bricks, slabs, and all sorts of other architectural stone products. Many of the housing developments for the hundred or so miles around Oxford used the stone. I grew up knowing a world of hard work, dirt, limestone, and sweat. I spent every school and college summer working in the noise, dust, and grime. The business sold when I was in my early twenties – my Dad and his siblings retired early, and the family scattered – everybody moved away. I moved away too, but that was because I met a girl.

Anyway.

I’ve never asked for money. Ever. I’m ridiculously independent – to a fault at times. I will always go without rather than spend money I don’t have. The stupid thing is, my parents are always willing to help if I give them the opportunity. A couple of years ago, the week before Christmas our TV died. I posted something along the lines of “oh crap” on Facebook, and the next morning an Amazon delivery truck arrived with a new TV – courtesy of my parents.

Growing up with hard working parents that scrimped and saved for things has probably defined me more than anything else. Sure, they have an easier life now, but I grew up knowing all about working long hours, putting up with horrible conditions, and just keeping going at things. It has served me well.

Early this evening I was worrying about money out-loud in the kitchen, when our youngest daughter overheard me (she was stealing something from the fridge behind me).

“You know, we don’t need pocket money”.

I stopped and smiled.

“No, it’s fine – I’m not worried about your pocket money”.