Isaac Newton

Today is Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday. I am a fan, not merely because of that most excellent last name that he bore, nor because one of my favourite authors, Neal Stephenson, appears to think very highly of him. At least the Baroque cycle did a lot to increase my broader respect for his mental prowess and bucolic thirst for knowledge which often left him haggard and weary near unto death as he laboured. No I am a fan because he was amazing.

Isaac Newton developed calculus to help himself solve a problem. Sure he may have on occasion held himself above even his own lofty station, but overall this was a man of staggering ability and intent. If that’s not worth admiring what is?

Happy Birthday Sir Isaac.

Snow is falling

Winter is (mostly) upon us.

I’ve finally realised that this is a parenting blog. I’m not for a moment suggesting that I or my wife are model parents, nor should you infer from my modesty that we are poor parents. Instead I think we are interesting parents. We love our daughter and we have another on the way (a baby, not necessarily a girl although my hunch is that it’s a boy). I’m aiming to have quite a large family, read double figures, and at the moment my wife isn’t complaining so it may actually happen.

Ninette will be nine months old this Friday. It’s staggering to review the new experiences that she has accumulated during this short period of time. Although I suppose for her it’s been a lifetime. Hur Hur. She now has three teeth and although she can’t do it for long, she stood independently for a few seconds yesterday and so crossed from baby to toddler. As someone who collects miniatures necessarily composed of many hundreds of small pieces this is something of a dificult time. Her reach has instantly raised from about 20-25cm to 50-60 cms. Where last week I was concerned only with keeping the floors of our home free from any kind of debris I am now clearing shelves, tidying surfaces and trying to work out what can be pulled down or pulled over.

It’s a big list. Some of it is electrical and those accidents just aren’t funny.

Also this week my parents are staying with us while Nicole makes an experimental foray back into the world of work. It didn’t start too well as my mother, devastated to leave her youngest son alone in the chilly North tripped over a kerb and both she and Ninette had a chat with the tarmac. I think my mother came off worse as she has bruised both of her legs and the bridge of her glasses has neatly removed a small piece of flesh from the crest of her nose. I shan’t be posting pictures of that.

Ninette got off lightly, she’s bumped her head and bitten her lip. As childhood injuries go, not too bad. Of course that goes nowhere near far enough to describe the terror I experienced when my father called me at work and opened with the words. “You should know first of all that Ninette is essentially OK.” For those of you who are grandparents and think that saying this sort of thing is a good idea. Don’t make the call.

Finally, to lighten the mood, let’s end with a giggle.

Lasertag – Every child’s dream

So, this last weekend played host to my twenty-seventh birthday. It was a lot of fun and one of the highlights was a quick trip down memory lane to our local Quasar establishment. As you can see below, my team didn’t do too well but I was amazing!

The scoresheet for our first game

The chaps down at Quasar Elite do their very best to give everyone a good time. I know its infantile but I loved every minute.

Javert or Jean?

You see? It’s only when I reviewed my post that I realised that I’m humming the hits and titling posts with lines from Les Miserables.

And yes, the plot is utterly miserable.

Chinese Food

My colleagues and I have just returned from our local all-you-can-eat chinese restaurant, Yoe-Bo. Before you ask, if indeed you have any interest in this area, I must insist that I ate only sensible portions. Despite the temptation to do otherwise. Eating at a chinese restaurant in London is a curious experience, especially since living in Newcastle aquainted me with what you might call real chinese food.

I can still recall with some horror the first time I was offered a glass of Dandelion Tea. My suspicions began when the word glass was used. I thought this may be a simple translation issue and so was somewhat bemused when a kettle was produced and near boiling water poured in to a set of glass tumblers, the sort you may purchase at Ikea were you so inclined. You can imagine how I felt when two or three freshly picked Dandelions were dropped, stalks and all, into my glass. “What’s this?” I spluttered. Full well knowing, as I watched the colours gently diffusing from the petals and stem, that what I had before me was garden-fresh Dandelion tea.

I have retained much of the caution about Chinese cuisine that I learned in those long months in Newcastle and so it is with relish and indeed relief that I eat at our local, and thoroughly westernised, chinese. There’ nothing direct about this place. Everything suits my palate just fine and I can for a moment pretend to be enjoying exotic flavours and smells.

Perhaps one day I may even make it to China, if McDonalds haven’t taken the place over entirely.

Living with the internet.

In days gone by life was more straight forward, or so the legend goes. When you returned from work, which was probably manual, you could eat a scanty meal and with the setting sun, turn in for the evening. In the morning, again with the sun, you would arise and set about your back-breaking effort to remain alive, with what passed for enthusiasm. This state of affairs continued for literally thousands of years! Why? Alcohol.

It didn’t take long for the old pattern of living to wear thin to those less inclined to booze and soon mankind had developed sliced bread, electricity and the light bulb. As soon as men could stay up late and eat sandwiches the computer was invented.  Shortly afterwards the twenty-four hour loneliness also wore thin and crotchety geeks invented facebook, so that they could show others how many ‘friends’ they had. Not having a way to actually communicate this to each other the geeks and nerds of the Earth held a great convention and invented the internet. Finally justifiying the existence of the countless thousands of miles of phone lines that had been installed all around the planet on the pretense that it would enable people to ‘talk’ to one another.

 Now, some few years on the internet is everywhere. You can even take it with you wirelessly to the park thanks to the invention of the dongle. Who thought of that name? Generall this means that the people you meet will take less interest in your cursive and more in your cursor. If, like the many millions of people born before the internet was, you find this ever so slightly daunting then perhaps you should visit the wonderful folks over at W3Schools.com. These guys haven’t missed the biscuit! As free resources go theirs are first class and if you want to know more and you don’t mind actually working at it you should take a look.

I will be posting some reviews of their content over the coming weeks so keep your eyes peeled.

Ten days gone

Ten days have passed since I last posted on my blog. Did I die? Have I become a transcendental being and abandoned the mortal plane? No. I got busy. I not sure about this whole business thing, I suppose what it really means is that my priorities have lain elsewhere. Now that they are done laying down I suppose we can get on with the serious business of maintaining a blog.

Which means that you better be back tomorrow to check on whether or not I have done anything of note.

Third Thursdays

Anyone from the United States of America can tell you that the third Thursday of at least one month is more significant than others. What they might not be able to tell you is that the third Thursday of every month is now our Workplace lunchtime outing. Why is Workplace capitalised? Who knows. No no, really, he does.

Personally I enjoy the opportunity to eat socially and while there’s not much talent around there are one or two decent restaurants in the area.

In other news, I watched a trailer for Bruce Willis’ new movie, Surrogates. It doesn’t look half bad. Which is one way of expressing caution about a movie which may turn out to be absolutely appalling. The film, as an adaption of a graphic novel, follows the recent trend established by blockbusters like Spiderman and Wolverine. Lots of very clean lines, some funky lighting and a not unreasonable plot. It’s Bruce’s presence that lends me caution.

After the disappointing volume of foul language in District 9 I hope that this one turns out to be a corker!

Times and Seasons…

09/09/09 09.09:09

I’m not sure why though. I mean, it’s pretty interesting that you can line up all of those zeroes and nines but I’m not sure that there are any benefits. I enjoyed looking at my clock this morning, but to say that the pleasure was fleeting is a bit of an understatement…

Perhaps that’s the benefit. I suppose these little curiousities help us to recognise that opportunities come and go all of the time. We need to lay hold of them whenever they crop up or otherwise they will be gone, far beyond our ability to recall them. I wonder if my clock had any idea of the significance of its display this morning or if the moment passed in the same way as many other thousands of moments.

I suppose it will be lunch time soon.

This is actually pretty tough…

You know I thought that I would take to this blogging thing like a fish would take to water…

That’s not been the case so far. I have plenty of things to say and there are good few things going on that I would like to comment on, but do I actually put fingers to keys? No.

I thought that by now this would be post 1,000 and that I would be posting links to cool sites such as www.kids-in-mind.com but instead I have no idea of even how to add a link to my posts… Where’s the button right? I mean I could write some code but am I expected to do that even in my own blog?

Who knows?