I’m guest posting over at A Family Runs Through It today. Feel free to head over there and throw metaphorical rotten tomatoes at me.
Archive for the 'General' Category Page 3 of 44
Scientists (or to give them their tabloid newspaper name: “Boffins”) at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, are going to switch on their Large Hadron Collider tomorrow.
ITN report that the Collider is designed to:
smash particle beams together at close to the speed of light to create mini-versions of the explosion believed to have triggered the birth of the cosmos.
The BBC website go into much greater detail, talking about protons and Higgs bostons and dark matter. But after a while my brain started to go all fuzzy and I had to go for a lie down.
According to ITN (who are clearly a news provider of merit and distinction and would never go for a cheap sensationalist angle) the physicists in charge are “ignoring” critics who warn:
the experiment will create “black holes” of intense gravity that could implode the Earth, or that it will open the way for beings from another universe to invade through a “worm hole” in space-time.
Blimey!
On Radio Four this morning they reported that CERN made a statement saying that the chances of this happening were “very low”.
Very low? I think I would have preferred something like “non-existent” personally, but you can’t have everything.
Still, I think it’s worth the risk. Not because the experiment might uncover the secrets of the universe or anything like that. No, to be honest all that stuff makes my head swim. I think it’s worthwhile because this is just the kind of thing that is almost guaranteed to produce Earth’s first superhero.
Lets face it, with all those energy beams and black holes flying around all over the place one of them is bound to hit some mild mannered scientist and transform him into The Amazing Proton Man or something like that. I only hope they are vetting their employees properly. Knowing our luck it will be some bitter psychopath called Victor Von Death that gets hit instead.
- It is a lot less stressful getting your children to nursery where it does not matter what time you arrive, than getting them to school where it does.
- Evan is a very slow walker.
- Evan is getting too heavy to carry any significant distance.
- Amy fluctuates between being either a very fast runner or a completely immovable object depending on which will make your life the most difficult at the time.
- Halfway to school is not a good time to realize that you have forgotten the dinner money.
- You should always keep enough cash in the house to cover emergencies.
- Raiding your daughter’s piggybank is not necessarily an immoral act given the right circumstances.
- At a flat out sprint, dragging one child along by the hand and carrying the other one under my arm I can get to the school in around ten minutes. It normally takes me eleven.
- I really need to do something about my levels of fitness.
- Homeschooling might not be such a bad idea after all.
So we’ve seen what team UK can do, now it’s the turn of team USA. If you don’t know what I’m talking about see yesterday’s post.
Name the TV show to go with the following theme tunes.
As I said before, there is a way to cheat on this quiz (not your iTunes version Phil, I fixed that). If you do know how to cheat, please don’t as it spoils the fun for everyone. We may be at war, but we still have to play fair.
These are all theme tunes from US TV shows. Well, one of them is from Canada, but let’s face it it’s the same thing really.
Tune 1
Tune 2
Tune 3
Tune 4
Tune 5
Tune 6
Tune 7
Tune 8
Tune 9
I have always liked VegasDad. He is balder than me, and that is a trait I approve of in a man. He’s also a great dad, an entertaining writer, and an all round good egg. But the baldness thing, that’s the deal clincher.
And now I have yet another reason to hold him in high esteem. He has very generously presented me with an award.
Now I know what you are thinking, you’re thinking: “How come I haven’t seen that rather impressive piece of blog bling anywhere else on the net?”. Well, that’s because I’m the first one to receive it. Oh yes, I’m in at the ground floor and the only way is up baby.
To quote VegasDad:
As you can see, Dan is definitely a man of distinction. In chronicling his quest, with humor I might add, he’s taught us all a valuable lesson in human strength and kindness.
I’m not too sure about that. In fact I think that if I’ve taught anyone anything it’s been that even a fat man can walk a long way if he’s threatened with international humiliation if he gives up.
Still, thank you VegasDad. You are very kind.
If there are any new readers here who have no idea what’s going on, then you can find out more by going here:
And then working your way through this pile of drivel:
For everyone else: Don’t worry, I’m not going to pester you for money again (well, maybe a little bit). I just wanted to let you know how the fundraising has been going.
The current total raised now stands at a staggering £5577 ($9875). And to think that in the early days I was hopeful that the ten of us would raise about £100 each.
£5577. That’s just over £70 a mile. Or £1.32 for every cheap knob joke we made at each other’s expense.
And that’s not the final total either. Donations are still trickling in, and there are still a few side projects in the works. There are even one or two of the walkers who have yet to hand over the sponsorship money they’ve collected. I’d name and shame them, but it wouldn’t do any good because none of the buggers bother to read this blog. And anyway, their retisence in handing over the dough is purely a logistical thing. I simply haven’t run into them yet.
All in all I am fairly confident that the final total is going to come in at just over £6000.
Isn’t that incredible. Six thousand pounds.
VegasDad is wrong. It isn’t me, or even my fellow walkers, who should be praised. It’s everyone that contributed to that magnificent total.
When someone comes round rattling the donation tin it’s all too easy to just slip them 50p to make them go away. But everyone was so much more generous than that. People gave £5, £10, £20. People even gave £50, £100 and sometimes even more. These are hard times, yet people still dug deep and for that I will be forever grateful. And of course there is still plenty of time to donate if you haven’t already.
So what next? Well the other day I was poking round the internet and came across a forum where people were talking about walking the Dales Way none stop, without even sleeping. They said that if you maintained a steady enough pace of around 3mph you could get it done in around 30 hours. Here’s an extract:
24 hours would be extremely difficult in my opinion for the Dales Way, my best is 29.25 hours. I have never finished it without extremely bad deep heels blisters, losing all the entire heel thich skin on three separate occasions, because the faster you walk the more the heat build up and 3 mile per hour is very fast for such a distance. The problem of blisters doesnt usually kick in untill around the 40 mile mark, but after that you know about it. You also need a very poisitive mental attitude, because it is ging to hurt like you have never hurt before, and it goes on and on and on.
So perhaps we could have a bash at that next year eh?
Or perhaps not. In fact I think I’d rather gnaw off my own arm. I can’t imagine what unearthly impulse would prompt someone to do something like that; but I can tell you this, they aren’t right in the bloody head.
So I don’t know if I’ll be doing anything next year for the charity. I did have vague ideas of buying a van, painting it to look like the one from the A-Team, and then driving to Moscow – but I was quickly shouted down as being an idiot.
To be honest I suspect I won’t be organising any grand money raising schemes for a little while. There’s only so many times you can badger people for donations. I am intending stay involved with the Joseph Salmon Trust however, and help out where I can.
And hopefully all the guys who did the walk, along with anyone else who wants to join us, will be venturing out for a couple of weekend reunion walks between now and next autumn. We built up a real camaradarie over those six days, and I would be honoured to once again tramp the fields in their company.
Unless it’s raining of course. If it’s raining then I’ll give it a miss and just sit inside watching TV and eating Doritos.
“Had a nice day at school Amy? What did you do?”
“Nuffin”
“Ok, so how was your first school dinner, what did you have?”
“Nuffin”
“Must be hungry then. Did your teacher tell you what you are going to do tomorrow?”
“I’ve got to go to school tomorrow? I don’t want to go again, I’ve been going every day!”
Haven’t the heart to tell her she’s got another 14 years…
And something else that didn’t last long:
So Amy’s first day at school went very well. She played in the water, found a dead butterfly in the playground, and made cherry buns out of play-doh.
It also appears that the bittersweet realization that Amy is growing up had obviously not been hammered hard enough into our conciseness quite yet. Why else would fate land us another body blow if not to reinforce the significance of today.
This evening as Amy was brushing her teeth she noticed a little wobble. A loose tooth. Probing it with her finger she discovered that she could flap it around like a T-shirt on a washing line. This caused Kerry to shriek in horror and run from the room completely freaked out.
My wife has a phobia of loose teeth. Who knew.
We weren’t expecting this. And more to the point we hadn’t prepared Amy for this. She became very upset, telling us, quite reasonably, that she didn’t want new teeth because she was quite happy with the ones she has now.
She also got very worried about the tooth fairy. For some reason Amy is convinced that she doesn’t sleep at night - she is adamant that she just goes to bed and waits there until morning. A theory that is very difficult for us to disprove: “Hey Amy wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP! WAKE… Ah, ok. Hello. Just wanted to tell you that you were sleeping”.
So if she doesn’t sleep, how is the tooth fairy going to leave her money under the pillow? We finally settled on writing a letter to the tooth fairy and asking her to leave the cash downstairs instead. Or even better, perhaps she could set up some sort of direct debit system.
Is it me, or does four (ok, nearly five) years old seems a little early to start loosing baby teeth to you? We certainly hadn’t started thinking of it as an imminent possibility. Isn’t there some way that we can slow down this growing up business? Things are moving too fast damnit!
Anyone got a slow motion button or something?
We’ve discovered that O2, the phone company that offers the iPhone over here, doesn’t provide a network coverage that extends to our house. Basically the only place that we can get a signal is waving it over our head in one corner of our bedroom.
This of course is despite O2’s website claiming our postcode’s signal was “strong”.
Kerry has come to the difficult decision that this means the phone isn’t worth keeping. She’s very disappointed.
However, as I’m a grumpy curmudgeon who shuns human contact I’ve decided that having a mobile that doesn’t work unless I’m actually mobile is a tolerable thing providing, you know, I get to have a iPhone to play with. So I’m having it.
I feel very guilty.
Can anyone think of a good birthday present?
***Update 03/09/08 10am***
When I got to work I discovered that the iPhone doesn’t have a reception in my office either. At least not enough of one for the 3G internet to work. So it’s back to Kerry to reconsider if she can cope with it not working in the house, and if not then it’s back to the shop with it.
Oh well, easy come easy go. And it has certainly expunged my guilt about stealing Kerry’s toy.
My wife and my sister are conspiring to make me feel miserable.
My sister, who like myself works for the NHS, has just got a new job. I’m not sure what her exact job title and description is, but as far as I can make out it involves going round and telling people to eat their greens because it’s good for them. Oh, and stop smoking because it causes cancer you know.
Basically she’s being paid to nag and tell people stuff they already know.
I on the other hand work as part of a team who provides rapid crisis response to people who are acutely psychotic or suicidal. It is my responsibility to dictate who needs to be in hospital and who doesn’t. Every day I walk a fine line between pressure to keep the hospitals as empty as possible and pressure to never make a mistake. If someone I have assessed kills either themselves or someone else I am held accountable by my managers, by my professional body, and by the coroners court. But more than that I have the death of another human being on my conscience.
Guess who gets paid more, me or my sister?
I know it’s not her fault. I know it’s the system wot’s to blame. But that hasn’t stopped me grumbling loudly about it. I used to complain loudly even back when she was getting paid the same as me; but now that she’s on a higher salary scale I imagine she’s going to break into a sprint every time she sees me coming.
I guess it’s probably just bad karma coming back to bite me for all those times I posted up extracts from her secret diary on the boy’s toilet wall at high school.
Come to think of it my brother earns more than me too. And all he does is tell people to turn off their lightbulbs and cycle to work.
Well bollocks to the lot of ‘em, that’s what I say. I still have more letters after my name than them, no matter how much they protest to the contrary. And I’m still the big brother, that gives me automatic bullying rights. Next time I see either of them I’m very tempted to sit on their chest and force them to smell my farts. That’ll teach them.
And as for Kerry. Well, guess what we went out and bought her today for her upcoming birthday:
Yep, it’s an iPhone. And whilst I’m still in my official mourning period for my iTouch too. I’m not going to punish her too though. She lives with me and so is forced to smell my farts almost hourly by default. The poor woman’s suffered enough already.
Amy starts school on Tuesday.
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been waiting for the right moment to write about the mixed bag of emotions that Im feeling. Waiting for that serendipitous combination of free time, bittersweet mood, and good old fashioned inspiration which would be required to pay full justice to the momentous milestone my beautiful daughter is just about to pass.
But that time hasn’t arrived. Work has been hectic, my emotions have been drained, and, umm… well Kerry and I have just rejoined LoveFilm and there has been a whole stack of shiny new rental DVDs begging to be watched.
But the day fast approaches and I’m still wittering on about Margaret Thatcher and morris dancers. So I guess I’m just going to have to bite the bullet.
Amy starts school on Tuesday.
It is a good school. It has reasonable OFSTED reports, but more importantly it has a reputation as a friendly and nurturing place for children to develop. There are only 40 pupils there. That’s in the school, not in Amy’s class. She will be in a class of ten other children, eight of which will be starting with her and two of whom are there already. Ten children to one teacher and one teaching assistant, the ratios don’t get better than that.
The school is in walking distance from our house, and we only need to cross one relatively quiet road to get there. We will be saving £90 a week in nursery fees and my mum has agreed to pick her up after school on days when both Kerry and I will be working so we don’t need to worry about finding a child minder.
Amy is desperately excited about starting. She’s more than ready for the academic challenges and is ecstatic about the prospect of learning to read. She has her school uniform and her new school shoes all ready to go and she paws over them like they were encrusted with diamonds.
Amy starts school on Tuesday. But I don’t want her to go.
I’m going to miss her terribly. I look after the kids on Mondays and Wednesdays. Me, Evan and Amy; we’re a team. A bumbling and shambolic team with scruffy clothes and snot running down our faces, but a team all the same. When she goes to school there is going to be a big Amy shaped hole in my and Evan’s day. There will be no more going to tourist attractions on schooldays and avoiding the hordes, no more free and easy weekdays with no deadlines or time restraints. Things just aren’t going to be the same.
But more than that, Amy going to school cements the inevitable truth that my little girl is growing up. She’ll be five in a couple of months. The same time again and she’ll be ten. Then fifteen, then twenty, twenty five, thirty.
I know it shouldn’t, but the prospect of Amy starting school feels almost like a bereavement. It doesn’t help that I work a lot of weekends and so the amount of time I am able to spend with her will be reduced dramatically. I’m making moves to resolve this, and things are looking relatively positive, but I just can’t shake that feeling of loss.
They say that from the moment a baby is born parenting is an exercise in learning to let go. Now, more than ever, I’m finding that hard to deal with.
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