write.as/jonbeckett

Today I am “working” from home. In reality, I called the client this morning and informed them that the likelihood of me getting much done today was pretty slim. I’m looking after Miss 17 – after two weeks fighting tonsillitis, going through one round of antibiotics, and still being sick, I’ve turned my focus almost completely on her. She’s taking tablets every two hours now, and I’m forcing her to keep drinking, and eating anything I can get her to – despite her less than enthusiastic responses to my constant reminders and encouragement.

Being “the enemy” is hidden in the back of the mythical parenting instruction book, isn’t it. It’s got sections on everything from “putting your dirty clothes in the wash”, to “having a shower”, “washing your hair properly”, and “getting home before dark”.

While not watching the clock until the next dispensary of medication, I’ve been tinkering with work stuff, playing chess against the computer, and wondering what I might write on the blog today. I’m an expert at looking like I’m busy, but actually getting little or nothing done. This morning’s insane rabbit hole was task list applications – I’ve always thought task list apps were a great idea, but have never stuck to using one. Now I’m “busy” filling in the bullet journal for the week ahead. In reality, work has turned into a reactionary stumble from one day to the next – all long term plans went out of the window some time ago.

Oh – nearly forgot – I bought “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” last night – the book that Dan Brown stole all the research from when he wrote “The DaVinci Code”. This is straight out of my play-book – wanting to find things out for myself and make my own conclusions, rather than accept what other people say. It’s the same reason I read so many of the banned books years ago.

Did you know I had read lots banned books? Many of them are not banned any more of course, but I always found myself drawn to them. I think perhaps Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” is the most famous – along with Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer”, and the various books wrapped in conspiracy theories – “The Catcher in the Rye” springs to mind.

When I was young and impressionable, I loved conspiracy theories. I still tend to think there is no smoke without fire, but am perhaps more willing to accept that we will never know, and devote less time to reading the opinions of others who cannot prove their theories either. That something happened, and was covered up in Roswell is probably without question. What it was, and what happened to it probably went to the grave with the various people involved. That something significant happened, and was covered up at Holloman Air Force Base in the late 1960s is also without question – again, we’ll never know.

As I’ve mentioned before – I’m happy these days if I can find two socks that match on a morning, let alone worrying about lights in the sky, things that go bump in the night, or which books record history most accurately. I quietly make my way from day to day, write these idiotic blog posts about it, and try not to harm too many people along the way. That’s enough for me.

Our eldest daughter has been in the wars – and that’s something of an understatement. For the last two weeks she has been fighting tonsillitis, and losing. She went through one course of antibiotics and appeared to be on the mend – but then the virus returned, and she hasn’t eaten all this week.

Guess who just took the afternoon off work to take her to the rapid access clinic at the doctor’s surgery in town, and came home with antibiotics, paracetamol, and ibuprofen? It’s at times like this the National Health Service comes into it’s own – I called on the phone at lunchtime – two hours later we arrived for an immediate meeting with a doctor who took one look in her throat, prescribed the drugs, and advised what could be taken together. No money changed hands. We walked across the road to the pharmacy, and picked up the antibiotics immediately. No money changed hands for the antibiotics either. The paracetamol and ibuprofen cost less than a fizzy drink.

We are incredibly lucky to have free and fast healthcare.

After getting home I counted out the pills to get Miss 17 started, and will be annoying the hell out of her every couple of hours for the next few days. She is already drinking fizzy drinks, and trying to eat ice cream – the first thing she has eaten for three days.

She cuddled up on the couch with me last night to watch a movie, and fell asleep a few minutes in. I ended up sitting for the next couple of hours with her head on my lap – not moving a muscle because she looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to wake her. I did wonder if the movie had bored her to death (The DaVinci Code).

My other half arrived back late in the movie, and half-watched the last few minutes with me. I bought her the book when it first came out – before it became famous, and she hated it. She had read the famous “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” years before, and recognised that Dan Brown had lifted the story immediately. This was a long time before the court case happened. We ended up talking about the movie anyway, rather than watching it (I’ve seen it before) – or more accurately, we talked about the subjects the movie raises.

If you throw away all the romantic rubbish from the Bible, there is a compelling story there – about a political dissident that was sentenced to death by the state. If you also look at the history of organised religion (not just the catholic church), you discover an apalling record of corruption, greed, and political maneouvering that stretches right back from the time before the crusades, to modern times. It’s interesting that pyramid schemes are illegal in most developed countries, and yet organised religion is not. The wide-scale indoctrination of children by parents still goes on across the world. Personally, I find it incredible that organised religion is allowed to be involved with infant and junior schools at all (it’s prevalent in the UK) – especially given the huge advances in education in the last century.

I went off on a bit of a rant there, didn’t I. I’ll shut up now.

I have half an hour left until I get to switch my computer off, climb aboard my trusty bicycle, and pedal my way back towards town. I’m already wondering what ass-hattery will be thrown at me during the journey – this morning was the third in a row where cars have pulled out in front of me with no indication what-so-ever regarding what they were about to do. Apparently I’m invisible.

(I can assure you I am anything but invisible – I stand about 6'3” tall, and typically wear a bright green cycle helmet – forgoing fashion to perhaps save my life one day).

Earlier in the week a guy on a bike behind me saw a car pull out, and me slide to a stop in the middle of the road, shaking my head. He shouted out that he couldn’t believe what he had just seen – he’s obviously not been cycling on the road recently.

I think people in general are getting worse – in all sorts of ways. They seem to care less and less about anything other than themselves with each passing year. I’m not so sure it’s down to social media either – as the press would have you believe – I think it’s a generational thing. The entitled generation – artists formerly known as the hipsters.

Anyway. Enough about the impending journey home.

I’m waiting for the leviathan I have been working on for the last six months to install on a test server before packaging it up once again. While waiting for it to do it’s thing, I installed Snapchat on my phone. Don’t ask why. I don’t know many people full-stop, let alone people who use Snapchat. I might have to sit down with my 17 year old daughter, to have the mysteries of Snapchat explained to me – you know, as you might explain them to a small child.

If you do happen to use snapchat, feel free to add me – “recursive.words” – and I will hopelessly fail to reply in any sort of timely, imaginative, or amusing manner – well, at least until Miss 17 has explained everything to me.

I started watching “Orange Is The New Black” last night. Yep – that’s right – I just started with the hugely successful TV show that’s headed towards it’s sixth season – and here I am, starting with season 1. I’m SO good at keeping up with all the cool kids.

The first couple of minutes of the first episode made me think about something. Almost without exception, every US made TV show I have watched over the last few years has started with some scene or other filled with sex or nudity. I began wondering if I’m subliminally seeking these shows out, or if it really is just every damn show.

I have a theory.

I think the fat-cat commercial guys that sign off on the production of TV shows are pretty similar to Donald Trump. To get them interested in a show, it has to show boobs, bums, or bits within the first few minutes – otherwise they lose interest. They probably lose concentration after a few minutes anyway – so the director knows he or she has to hit it straight away with some sort of frantic scene – just enough to get the signature for the first season.

Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong.

Whatever happened to good stories though ? Who remembers “You’ve Got Mail”, where the two central characters dance around each other for the entire movie ? What about “The Office”, where the relationships between the characters slowly built throughout the entire first season – leaving everybody crossing their fingers and toes ? Remember those scenes in “The Truman Show”, where the audience are rooting for Truman to escape the colossal TV studio he has been imprisoned in for his entire life…

I don’t know. Maybe it takes all sorts of people to make the world work. Maybe some of us tend towards blunt, graphic, shallow stories, whereas others tend towards gentle, thoughtful, complex stories. I really don’t know.

Anyway. I’m two episodes in with “Orange Is The New Black”, and liking it a lot so far. Maybe I should stop over-thinking TV shows, and just enjoy them for what they are.

This morning I took the earth shattering decision to start adding photos to my blog posts, and set about working backwards through the first few, choosing suitable pictures to accompany them. I’m not sure pictures really serve any purpose – I don’t really “do” photo-blogging. If nothing else, the pictures brighten the blog up a bit.

I added a mugshot to the “about” page – which finally has a few words about me in it. It turns out writing a potted profile of yourself is quite difficult. I can’t imagine too many people bother with profiles or about pages anyway, but if they do – it’s there.

It strikes me there’s a lot of “things you should do” when it comes to blogs, and blogging – things that any number of “experts” harp on about via their niche webby award winning snore-fests. If we all followed their guidance, every other post would be a paid advertorial, and we would sell everything out to Facebook, Twitter, and wherever else we can use to manufacture a cloud of recursive, self-serving links.

If you EVER see me do a clothes try-on haul, let the people in charge of the internet know they can push the big red button next to my name.

Nope. I’m just going to write my words, and attach a picture each time – mainly to make the place look a bit more colourful, but also to contemplate the words. This is of course where you look back, and start questioning my choices of photos, and I pretend to ignore you before obsessing over replacements.

ANYWAY!

I’ve rambled on for five paragraphs about NOTHING. You don’t have to tell me it’s a skill. I’m that guy that can stand at a lecturn, and pad out fifteen minutes while the back stage guys deal with a disaster. Sure, everybody out front will start fidgeting, yawning, and checking their watches, but I’ll damn well keep going.

Oh – in other news, I think everybody should install ICQ like it’s 1999 all over again. I installed the mobile app at lunchtime – it’s just as good as any of the alternatives, if not better – and best of all, it’s NOT any of the alternatives. Not that I’m that person that is always manufacturing new places to hide on the internet, honest.

I didn’t get up until nearly 10am this morning. This is unheard of, but not altogether unexpected after not falling asleep until 3am. Of course now my body is getting it’s own back on me – throwing headaches at me like a baseball pitcher, shouting “let’s see how you deal with THIS, asshole”.

It’s been a quiet day today. Thankfully. While my other half and the younger children spent the day on a school field across town preparing for the summer camp they help run each year, I did a few chores, watched TV, played video games, and tried (for once) to not do anything too constructive.

I tried to update the books I have read on Goodreads earlier, but have forgotten what I’ve read in the last few months. I looked around at the shelves behind me, and almost laughed at my own forgetfulness. I’m the same way with movies and music – I forget the names of artists, but know their tracks.

This evening I sat with Miss 17 and watched old episodes of the TV comedy “Suburgatory” together. After the first episodes I decided we could do with some snacks, so made a late night trip to the store – returning with fizzy drinks, chocolate, and ice cream. We watched another couple of episodes while stuffing chocolate before calling it a night. We have the same sense of humor. “Suburgatory”, and “Community” are our go-to guilty-pleasure TV shows.

I still need to finish watching “Awkward”. I watched the first couple of seasons while travelling with work a couple of years ago, and never went back to it. There’s another season of “Mozart in the Jungle” waiting for me to watch at some point too. I think “The OA” is due to come back soon – perhaps one of my favourite shows in recent years.

I like TV shows that challenge you – that make you think. The OA did that. It was so different than anything else, and still is in many ways.

Anyway. Tired. I should go to bed. Work in the morning, and all that stuff.

I’m writing this post at 1:21am on Saturday night. The blog will show the date as Sunday. We all know that the early hours of Sunday morning are still Saturday night, don’t we. Everybody knows that. Maybe.

Today has been either wildly unproductive, or wonderfully restorative, depending on which way you look at it. After a slow start, and the usual round of chores, my other half and the younger children headed off to a school field where preparations are being made to run a summer camp for somewhere in the region of four hundred children next week. I roused Miss 17 from bed, and invited her out for a coffee in town.

Perhaps more accurately, I asked if she might like to do anything, and she whispered “Starbucks?”. She’s been suffering with tonsilitis all week.

After perhaps half an hour, she emerged from her room, dressed and washed, and we began a very slow and quiet walk into town. We sat in Starbucks together for a while, nursing a coffee, talking about nothing in particular, and then slowly and quietly made our way around the nearby shops. She really wasn’t well, but getting some fresh air was definitely the thing to do.

Along the way we visited the local bookshop, and I thought “what the hell”. After perhaps fifteen minutes browsing around, I did my bit to support independent booksellers, and carried an armful of books to the counter. All of them for Miss 17.

She now has a paperback copy of “IT” by Stephen King, which I’m hoping against hope she will read. If we read it together (I’ve still not read it), it will at least give her somebody to talk about it with. While thinking about that, I really need to get back into using Goodreads. I used to use it years ago, but it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten what I’ve read since last updating it.

This evening has somehow vanished into it’s own black hole. I’ve played video games, washed up, watched a boxing match live via the internet, washed up some more, and thought about reading a book. Of course I didn’t read the book – I fell down an internet rabbit hole, reading about obscure art-house movies. Several of them are downloading right now.

In the middle of all of this, I look at the clock ticking past 1:30am, and wonder how this is happening. Normally I would struggle to make it past 10pm without yawning – and here I am, several hours later, wide awake. The universe must have a pretty twisted sense of humor.

I’ve started writing this post several times over the last hour. I’m still not entirely sure where I’m going with it. Rather than actually write anything, I have procrastinated famously – installing two different text editors to try out, and vanishing down an internet rabbit hole in the process.

I’m tired. Properly tired. Along with the usual headbanging sessions against the coal face of the pixel mines, I’ve also been dealing with the kids being off school for the summer. I’m pretty sure that if we generate any more washing up, dirty clothes, or rubbish in the bins outside, the Earth will begin to tilt sideways as the mass displacement kicks in.

It’s the weekend though, right? If I can avoid the endless cycle of washing up and tidying up, I might try and write something of consequence, rather than this endlessly recursive commentary on the mundane and the forgettable.

One of my friends has been busy writing a book in her spare time, and I have to admit I’m envious. I’ve had several attempts at NaNoWriMo over the years, and failed every time because either life or work stomped all over it. I’m wondering if I might be better off just starting to write something – anything. Something has got to be better than nothing, hasn’t it. I’ve kind of proved through the blog over the years that I can quite successfully waffle on about nothing at all, seemingly without end.

I remember a computer studies lesson at school when I was about 13 years old. The class of children sat around the computer lab, sharing computers – because back then schools couldn’t afford a computer for each child. We were shown a word processor for the first time, and myself and my best friend at the time spent quite some minutes fashioning a ridiculous story. Of course we were not supposed to be writing a ridiculous story at all, but handed a screen, a keyboard, and the ability to write – we dove straight into it. I sometimes wish I could still do that. Perhaps I can – it’s not like I’ve actually tried.

Several years ago – before children, when time was a thing to be toyed with and spent frivolously, I would write long, rambling blog posts about life, the universe, and everything inbetween. I would empty my head through the keyboard as easily as turning on a tap – churning out 750 words with relative ease. Granted, I wrote 750 words in order to post to the website “750words”, but that’s besides the point.

I used to have important things to say – or at least I thought so.

These days I’m lucky if I get ten minutes late in the evening to write the literary equivalent of “I’m still here – not sure how – but I am”.

I used to have big thoughts about important things. I read books about philosophy, science, and history. I had dinner with friends, and talked into the early hours – stories from childhood, dreams for the future, and hopes for tomorrow.

These days I’m pleased if I can find two socks that match.

I’m not quite sure what happened to that happy-go-lucky guy. I’m sure he’s still inside me somewhere – probably bashing silently against a window, demanding to be let out. He’s been pushed aside by a house, children, a career, and the enormous adventure of “making up parenting as I go along”.

I’ve never read a parenting book. People tell me I’m a great Dad, but when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t really compare or rate yourself – you just get on with it. I remember when some of our friends had their first children, and they obsessed about this chart, or that percentile, or the other signal for exceptional ability. I thought they were all mad. I still do.

We adopted. We couldn’t have our own children – the story, spread over perhaps three years – is told in the catacombs of my blog. We went from zero to three children overnight, and life as we once knew it was blown away like a scene from the Trinity nuclear tests. I think a lot of those big thoughts about life, the universe and everything might also have been blown away. Perhaps not lost entirely – just blown around a corner to be dusted off, and re-discovered one day.

I sometimes wonder when that day might be.

The clock is ticking towards 10pm as I begin writing this, and it’s really the first chance I have had all day to empty my head. If I was going to be lazy I would write about how tired I am – weary really – and how the day has knocked the stuffing out of me. That wouldn’t be the whole story though – I got a huge amount of complicated work done. Here’s the problem though – if I even begin to tell you what I’ve been working on, your eyes will glaze over, and you’ll start wondering what’s on Netflix.

Of course I can’t really tell you what I’ve been working on, because it would cross all kinds of professional boundaries – not to mention privacy, security, and non-disclosure agreements. I suppose I can mention fifty thousand lines of PowerShell scripts, a few thousand lines of JavaScript, fifty-odd workflows, and a couple of hundred digital forms that make up one of the biggest projects I’ve ever worked on. It has pretty much taken over my life since February, and will continue far into next year.

It’s odd really – doing what I do – because explaining what I do generally requires an explanation of the explanation (if that makes sense at all). Even sitting in meetings with project managers from big organisations, they ask what is possible – and I reply “anything”. When their eyebrows raise, I continue on “you can have anything – it’s just time and money to achieve it”. I then try to talk them out of whatever they are asking for, and talk them into what I would rather give them.

Sometimes you need to give somebody what they asked for, before they realise that the thing you originally wanted them to have would have been a much better idea. Sometimes that story takes months to unfold. Then of course it’s their idea – not your original idea at all – and you smile, and set fire to everything you spent the last few months building.

It doesn’t always happen that way, but it does far more often than you might think.

Anyway. I didn’t set out to rant about nerdy stuff. I was going to write about being tired, wasn’t I. So tired I couldn’t possibly waste several hundred words about work.

I think it’s time I went and switched the kettle on.