Catching Up

Life at the moment is manic. Between my day-job, photo-work, generally attempting to be less of a part-time parent / neglectful husband as well as captaining a failed rugby team it would appear I have been rather poor at doing my part to fill the internet. Moaning about being busy is neither entertaining nor unusual, <OverlyEnglishAccent>but one must do ones duty what what…</OverlyEnglishAccent>

Brief highlights:

• To say Maggie is now crawling would be an overstatement, but she is definitely now mobile. Gone are the days of putting her down and expecting to find her where you left her 🙂 . She is our resident Sniper. She also seems to have developed a sixth sense for things she’s not allowed to play with – marbles, shoes, Lego, pens … These are problems we never had before as when we last had a Sniper in the house Bart was still on quite child friendly toys where as now it seems everything they have seems to have removable this and detachable that.
• I Offered to host a family photo day for my children’s school, in order to raise funds for the “Parents Society” (PTA). Have now learned that I might have been better to have kept my big mouth shut as I have jumped through sooo many hoops already and it’s not until Sunday … Note to self … Do not offer self up as human sacrifice in future! Bad Idea! Not even to raise money!
• Bart and Lisa’s reports came through … much as expected.
  • Lisa’s report gushed about this angelic child that works hard, self motivated, plays nice with others … all the thing you want to hear.
  • Bart’s report clearly points out, although through a vale of Teachereese that Bart needs to clam down and concentrate more. He is too easily distracted and could do better. However they then begrudgingly point out that he as aced his exams. – What reaction am I expected to give to that? He should be working harder … but he got 100% in verbal reasoning … so I would probably loose the argument anyway 🙂
• Swimming, swimming, swimming … I seem to spend most of my otherwise free time, shepherding one or both of my children to/from swimming. Bart had time trials to get into the swim team, but being that he has spent the past year staunchly refusing to use his legs as anything other than an anchor, I fear it may be a long-shot. On the plus side is that Lisa just got moved up a class in her Sunday swimming lessons and will be swimming at the same time as Bart … which should reduce the time spent by up to 2 hours … unless Bart does make the team and then all bets are off.
• I attended a belated Darwin Day lecture last Tuesday by Professor Armand Leroi which was fascinating. Once I found the lecture hall that is. I wondered if it was some form of selection along the lines of “You have to be at least smart enough to get to the lecture, in order to attend” Thankfully I just about scraped in 🙂 They obviously don’t have a cartography department in the university!
• It is almost spring so I have been harassed encouraged to sort out our gardens. We bought the house with a very nice, fairly large, well maintained garden. Since the purchase I now understand that to mean “Time Sink”.
• I reclaimed some of this time by “reading” The Time Traveller’s Wife via audiobook whilst doing the gardening. This book was amazing (I will talk about it separately), however it did result in a lesson on audiobooks. You must pay attention to where you are going to listen to certain books as I power-washing the front drive whilst crying over a certain section of the book some of the spray came back and collected around the vicinity of my eyes.
• Mrs Geek has been arranging our summer holiday. Scouring the internet for camp-sites in the south of France in order to play catch-up on some of the sunshine that we are so desperately craving here in Not-So-Sunny Northwest England. I refuse to wish my life away (especially as everything to do with the kids seems to be so temporary) but I am SOOOO looking forward to three solid weeks of sunshine (barring unreasonable freak weather conditions!)

I am sure there are probably many other things that I have overlooked, but I will stop here or it will never get posted.

Photos Catch-up

OK so after the last post where I found that I was the only one who hasn’t been sharing their photos, and I got the “gentle” reminder that I have not exactly been generous with the photos of my children with my vast audience I decided to share a few of the photos from the pre Christmas build up.

Firstly, just to show that when RC discussed “Co-Sleeping” I mentioned that although we are lucky enough to have a king-size bed, it is still far from spacious at times.

Secondly … OK I have still not got around to taking a picture of the trimmed tree … however it can (partially) be seen in the background of this picture of Lisa.

For Tendrils who told me off for not sharing reminded me that I had not posted any pictures of baby Maggie recently

And having told numerous people how I do not do early Christmas presents, yesterday we had a Mini-Christmas for my brother-in-law’s girlfriend as she is going back to the US today to be with her family for Christmas. So here are some of the pictures from the Geek’s Christmas dress rehearsal.

Christmas Meme-ories

OK, even though I still have not got around to the last Meme that both RC and Tendrils tagged me for (I’m not at my computer to look at my photos and when I am [Cue the violins] I am too manic to remember to look it up)

But I have gone ahead and robbed this one from Tendrils anyway because I love Christmas and it was too good to pass up (P.S. I too have added the WordPress Christmas Snow … Yipee!) (P.P.S The OCD made me change the many uses of Favorite to Favourite … The voices in my head made me do it :-p ) (P.P.P.S … and color!)

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate. If for no other reason than I have never had Egg Nog! One of the few things we here in England have not decided to copy. I really did develop quite a liking for Cola Cao (slightly thicker, and richer than normal hot chocolate) when Mrs Geek lived in Spain.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
Family presents go under the tree, Santa fills the stockings and sacks by the fireplace. Each child has different wrapping paper to avoid confusion. (He really is very considerate).

3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white?
White. I don’t know why, I just feel they look nicer.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Never have, but they were selling it when we got the tree last year, and if I had more money with me, last year would have been the first… Therefore I anticipate this year being our first Kissmas 🙂

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Anytime in December that we have opportunity. This year Mrs Geek seems to have taken much of the load as they are mostly in place, yet I have not been party to it. I believe the Tree and the paper chains are being left for me. The Tree because it is heavy, and the paper chains because I have to get the big ladders out.

6. What is your favourite holiday dish?
Here in the UK traditionally Christmas day is our “Turkey Day”. But we gave up having a traditional Christmas dinner in our house as it became too much effort to police the children on a day when we just want to be happy. Therefore it has now been ruled that Christmas day is “Favourite Food” day. This meant that last year the adults got turkey and all the trimmings, Bart got lasagne, and Lisa got fish fingers and potato waffles. I think I will stick with the Turkey.

7. Favourite Holiday memory as a child:
Christmas day as a 6 year old playing with my “Space Lego” while the adults were sleeping off the turkey.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
What truth? I met him last year… Jolly nice man he was too 🙂

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No way (Shame on you Tendrils)

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Mrs Geek and I have built a collection of little decorations over the years, but many are still the super cheap decorations we bought from Lidl for £1 on our very first Christmas. Alas fewer and fewer of them are making it through each Christmas.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
I LOVE snow! But we get so little of it, it does seem a little wasteful to have it on Christmas day when there is already so much going on. That said two years ago was my first White Christmas, and it was lovely.

12. Can you ice skate?
Yep. I used to like in a city with an Ice Rink so it was an integral past of my childhood. But it tended to be a summer activity.

13. Do you remember your favourite gift?
As this is a clean blog (ish) I will assume this means when I was a child. In which case I will go with my old Atari 2600 .

14. What is the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Happy people. I love seeing people happy.

15. What is your favourite Holiday Dessert?
Again I am very English… Christmas pudding (with a coin in) with custard! (Hold the brandy/sherry/other nasty spirits). I am also quite partial to the odd mince pie.

16. What is your favourite holiday tradition?
Going to the Pantomime on Christmas Eve with the family … which isn’t going to happen this year 😥 .
And going to my friend’s church for carols by candle light (which hopefully is going to happen, although it may be a bit late for Maggie)

17. What tops your tree?
A chubby little angel doll, mounted via a twisted coat hanger. She was another hold over from that first Christmas where we couldn’t afford anything better, but I don’t think we will every want to replace her.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving?
Giving. I’m not claiming to be all altruistic, I just like seeing other peoples reaction.

19. What is your favourite Christmas Song?
I have always loved the carol “Away in a manger” … but I think my daughter’s school rendition of “Mary, Rock Your Baby” has it now 😉

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Neutral … I would much rather have chocolate.

That’s it … There seems to be no mention of tagging others in the original post, so I will not tag others other than RC because then I can point out that I tagged her even if Tendrils neglected to 🙂

P.P.P.P.S. On the subject of memes this was Published Post #99

Back in my day … the grass was greener, the summer was warmer …

and shops knew how to treat people.

I hate shoddy customer service! There is absolutely no excuse for it, and I hate to admit that it seems to be the way things are generally progressing.

I sound like someone’s granddad when I say things like “I remember when the person in the shop would …” and you can complete the sentence with so many things

… smile.
… remember their ps and qs
… pass me my change instead of throwing it on the counter
… not talk on their cell phone whilst making a minimum effort to serve me!

Garrhh !!!

I like the idea of voting with my feet and just not using these places any more … but it is becoming ubiquitous.

And this is with real shops, the internet brings another level of indirection which in general just increases the likelihood of poor service… and the ones that outsource their customer service are even worse.

Recently others (RC and Helen (followed by crazy harrassment)) have used their blog to highlight particularly bad service.

However, today I experienced Exceptionally Good customer service, and I figured it would be worth mentioning.

A few weeks back I bought some new Headphones for Emily.

Fast-forward to yesterday, and one of the ear buds decided that it had had enough and so I was down to single ear listening. This is not that unusual, it certainly is not the first pair of ear buds that decided to do that. However, it is the first set that I had paid quite so much for (this was before we started cutting back).

In the past I have bough quite a number of things from amazon, and had very little problem. The biggest problem was finding a phone number to get hold of them on!

Well they seem to have sorted that since then, as rather than you call them, they have a link that gets them to call you … Instantly! Literally my phone rang within a couple of seconds.

I then explained my problem and how I felt a high end set of headphones should be more robust, half expecting to be told that it was my fault for “Excessive wear and tear” or some other such non-provable loophole, but the chap just fronted up and said it was no problem, he would send one out straight away.

I was blown away by their attitude. SO refreshing. I would seem they could not do enough for me … I had 30 days to return the original set, which means I could get by with my one ear set until the new set arrived. The parcel arrived this morning (I reported it at 2pm yesterday! That is quicker than when I originally ordered it), they have offered to refund the postage charges for sending the original set back via a recorded delivery. And they have apologised for any inconvenience that I might have suffered!

In an age of dying customer service, this is exceptional treatment. So to amazon … I take my hat off to you … BRAVO

[Note: I am under no delusion that this post will affect their bottom line, I just thought they deserved the recognition.
P.S. I will also point out that this was amazon.co.uk … and I have no idea if this behaviour is universal]

My name is Mr Geek and I am a ____oholic

OK so I got tagged by RC. I need to do the following:

List 5 current addictions and then tag 2 people.

It will take a little effort to keep it down to 5. Time to come clean. In this over diagnosed world I would suggest I have an odd, if not paradoxical blend of OCD and ADD*. The OCD makes it so that everything I do is an addiction, and I get frustrated if I am not given enough time to do it to perfection. This conflicts with the ADD which pulls my attention away from one obsession and focuses me on another then another. The end result is that I am a perfectionist that does a half assed job at everything and gets frustrated with all of it 😆

I would have liked to claim reading among my addictions, and for a long time it would have been #1, but it has been so long since I read anything I really can not. Just waiting for the next trip on the ADD addiction roundabout!

So here goes.

1) Diet Coke OK so the people that know me in the real world, know that my Diet Coke addiction is extreme. I drink way WAY too much! This however is being addressed the hard way by our recent need to budget 😦 Damn you cold turkey 😥

2) Emily OK, so I have not updated you recently, shouting about my shiny new gadget when I am meant to be budgeting just induces Mrs Geek’s technophobic discrimination. However, I do find that I am constantly playing with it whenever I have 5 minutes to myself. Between twitter, reading my blogs, podcasts (see below) and Aurora Feint (simple blocks game that is totally addictive).

3) Food I know it is not really an addiction in the true sense, but I seem to have a problem. I would love to trim a few pounds here and there, who wouldn’t, but my historical technique of increasing the amount of exercise seems to be failing me. (1) because I can’t actually find the time to dedicate to exercise what with the whole family life and all (2) because it makes me hungry and I eat. I know it is not rocket science, I just have to eat less … I just seem to suck at eating less. Some people eat to live … I live to eat!

4) Podcasts This is sort of related to 2, but I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts. Every now and then I do a purge of what I listen to, but then I find a whole bunch more that just drag me in! At some stage I will do a post detailing what I listen to, but I never seem to catch up.

5) Bloggs You notice I did not put blogging. I enjoy putting my thoughts down on … well not on paper, but you know what I mean. But I am far from addicted as you may have noticed by tendency for the odd Blogcation (Thanks to RC for that word). I really enjoy reading other peoples blogs and I love the kind of community spirit that form around them. I feel concerned when someone I virtually know virtually disappears for a while. If I had more focus I could totally make a good stalker!

Anyway, as I said there are many other addictions that I may have overlooked, repressed or was just too ashamed to admit to.

I tag Nemma who I just realised was not on my blog roll (now fixed … my humble apologies) and Tendrils (and this time RC has not beaten me to it!)

Tag … no returns!

*Note: I have not been diagnosed with either of these afflictions, I am using them for illustrative purposes only. (I do have many the tendencies though)

Weston Pier Burns

Today the Grand Pier at Weston burned down. (This is slightly regional, so forgive my indulgence.)

First let me state that nobody was hurt, so I was surprised by the fact that I am so saddened by this story. It has probably been 4-5 years since I last went and I am currently living over 200 miles away. Chances are it would have been another 5 years before I returned, but this pier is pretty much a staple part of my childhood holiday memories.

I spent almost every one of my childhood holidays in Brean, the next bay along, so Weston was the “Big Town” to go to on days out. Goodness knows how much of my pocket money left me on that pier, not to mention the coins that dropped between the floorboards into the mud below. Then as an adult, I drove to Weston and had donuts on the peir the evening that I got my driving licence and I can remember taking my son onto the pier and playing Air Hockey, video games, and getting sick on candy floss and toffee apples.

It was bad enough when I found out that they had closed the Tropicana! But for the pier to be gone makes me more than a little sad. Now that I live away from where I grew up, it seems like every time I go back another slice of my childhood has been consigned to my memories alone, and in the process of my therapy writing this blog post I think I have determined why the story saddened me. It is not because we have lost a historic and arguable quite aesthetically pleasing building, nor is it empathy to the loss experienced by those that work there etc … It is something far more simple … far more selfish …

It is making me feel very old and I don’t like it.

hmm … not sure I’m overly proud of that discovery, as it does make me seem rather shallow

Baby update No Baby Update

OK so we still have no baby. And after yesterdays appointment with the midwife, Mrs Geek is now only 1 day overdue…?

How does that work … well when we originally worked out when the baby was due we got it to be the 11^th of June, but when we had the scan they told us that based on it’s measurements it was going to be the 6^th. Yesterday the midwife overruled this and reset it back to the 11^th.

Now it doesn’t actually change the fact that the baby isn’t here, it does however increase the window of opportunity for a home birth, before they start wanting us to go in for an induction.

The midwife also informed her that she was dilated by 2” and that all was ready to go, we just needed to wait for the contractions to start.

Getting Tetchy

As you may have guessed, We Still Have No News!, and Mrs Geek is getting a little Tetchy.

I know that people mean well and they ask her “Still not had the baby?” … but really is it not somewhat self evident. My suggestion was that she tell the that she had got used to the bad posture, so she had taken to carrying her purse in her blouse … but to her credit she has refrained from sarcasm.

Yesterday my daughter resorted praying to ask god if it was a boy or a girl. I expect she also put in a request to sway the outcome when we were not listening, anything to get the upper hand on her brother who has not thought of that one yet.

The good news is that he has mitigated the possibility of it being a girl in that it would make us “Just like the Simpsons” … Now there’s an aspiration 🙂 I don’t think my daughter has worked out an upside to it being a boy yet… We’ll cross that bridge if and when …

Today Mrs Geek was booked in for a “Membrane Sweep”, which sounds just delightful (I am trying really hard not to think about what that is)… but it is supposed to be very effective in reducing the chances of requiring an induction.

I think she has also decided that it is funny to call me on my mobile. This causes much amusement at work as my office is almost always silent, which means that when ever my phone goes off, everyone turns to me and watches as I hurry trying to answer the phone and not to panic.

Stand back … She’s gonna blow!

Yesterday I talked of my lack of urgency with respect to when the baby arrives. This was, however, overlooking one fairly major factor. We may have been joking about it for the last few months, but I think Mrs Geek may be about to POP.

Seriously there really can’t be much room left in there, and as clichéd as it may be, she is beginning to look like a cut scene from Alien. For those of you that have been through the whole pregnancy thing, you will know that there comes a time when the baby is no longer kicking, but every movement causes an involuntary belly dance. Much to the children’s amusement we balanced a number of grapes on Mrs Geek’s tummy, and watched the baby kick them off. You can literally see the movements from the other side of the room.

Alas this is not an option afforded to Mrs Geek. As amusing as it may seem from the outside, it is not quite so funny when it is your bladder the baby chooses to use as a punch bag.

I think this is another example of the “selective amnesia” that we experience when it comes to pregnancy. Sure we can remember the other two moving and kicking, but this all-out attempt to break out … this seems new. Do we have a child with even more energy on our hands?

We are now in full scale evacuation mode. Pineapples, curry, going for walks. Now the sceptic in me would normally brush these off as “Old Wives Tales”, but some old wives tales have there benefits too, because many people have told us that the best way to get it out is the same way as it got in 😉

Make it a Shay Day!

Although obviously intended as more e-mail drivel, I originally got this posted to me on Facebook. I repeat it here as although it is rather preachy, I must say it spoke to me. It is both heartwarming and melancholy at the same time. I know not whether the story is fact or fiction, neither do I care. I only hope that am able to make the difference when the opportunity arises.

Two Choices

What would you do?….you make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: ‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?’

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. ‘I believe, that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.’

Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’ Shay’s father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay’s father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father’s joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first! Run to first!’ Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’ Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball … the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the way Shay’

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third! Shay, run to third!’

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’ Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.

‘That day’, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, ‘the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate. The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If you’re thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you’re probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren’t the ‘appropriate’ ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the ‘natural order of things.’ So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them

You now have two choices:
1. Delete
2. Forward
May your day, be a Shay Day