I’ve been meaning to write a new entry for quite some time. This one will be about me, so if that bores you, time to move on.
I have been wanting to say a few things about why I am writing the blog, after spending two months trying to decide whether I should do it anymore. The answer is: I want to remember this time of our lives. Maybe I will want to remember “this time of our lives” for the rest of our lives, or maybe it’s just a special time here in London. I also want our kids to have something to check out in a 5, 10 or 15 years. But why a blog and not just a journal? Ah, well, I cannot bring myself to write unless I think somebody is going to read it, even if it’s just three people.
I have lots going on right now and there is not enough time in the day. This is how I had hoped my first year of not working would have been, but it’s OK that it took a year to get to this point. Here’s what’s going on:
- Piano - I decided to take up piano to take the place of my drums, which are still in the states. Without going into it I will say that I am having an unbelievable amount of fun. I am playing some nice pieces (two Bach and now a Handel) and I practice between one and two hours a day. It won’t be long before I am singing and playing Tori Amos songs about teen angst! I took a video of myself - I looked horrendously twisted, tense, etc., so you will spared the details.In my last lesson my teacher told me to stop trying to impress him with how well I interpret the music. I get nervous when I first play for my teacher at each lesson, and last week I tried a shot of brandy before the lesson to see if it would help. It didn’t.
- Hacking - I got good, concise books on php, mysql, JavaScript and CSS and I finally know how the modern web works. I was stuck back in the 1997 time frame in terms of those technologies.I have been working on getting a website for our kids’ school up and running. I am using WordPress, WebCalendar, have my first mysql database, wrote a JavaScript photo viewer, etc. Programming is just fun, that’s all there is to it.I am trying to switch from Emacs to TextMate, a mac editor that is taking the hacking world by storm (maybe). It’s very interesting but hard to break 30 year long habits. It was so exciting at first that I couldn’t sleep at night.
- Getting Out - Last week I went out drinking with a bunch of other Dads at the school … um in the middle of the day, stopping just in time to pick the kids up at school. That is what I envisioned from the moment I got here and saw the pub from across the street from the kids’ school.
- Working Out - the opposite of the previous item, working out three days a week, if I can keep healthy. Lately it’s been hard because I have had a nagging cold.
- Learning How to Drive - We decided it was time, so we joined a car club. There are cars parked on the side of the road all over London and we can schedule them for an hour at a time. I went out for a test drive last week and luckily one of our friends came with us. She made sure we didn’t get lost or do anything stupid. Unfortunately I had to drive 1000 yards to her house to pick her up and during that time I almost hit a lady who was bending over with her car door open on the LEFT side of the road, where I was correctly driving but not correctly looking. I looked up just in time and swerved away. (I am not exaggerating.) The only other mistake was not noticing a traffic circle until our friend yelled STOP!Anyway, I am going to get my UK driver’s license. I hooked up with an instructor yesterday and everything went well. Once he explained the rules about round-abouts it was a no brainer.
I am boring myself with my own post. I am sure my children will treasure this entry when I am long gone… Once I can figure out how to get WordPress to allow me to upload more than one photo at a time I will have some more interesting and colorful blog entries.
Until then, cheers!