Blog

End of the year meme (from (Via ))

1. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?
   Real work
2. Did anyone close to you give birth?
   Not that I know of or remember so probably not
3. Did anyone close to you die?
   unfortunatly yes, my Grandad far too recently, also 2 people from my church who I knew well
4. What countries did you visit?
   France, Germany, Austria and I’m going to count the Isle of White as one, simply because i want to
5. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
   Sleep
6. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
   I don’t remember much from th year, but my first day at work springs to mind, as do a few days spent with friends for whatever reasosn.
7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
   Getting up at 6am more than once. Also, built nice big sound system with for a concert which all went fairly well to plan
8. What was your biggest failure?
   This year has been one of small cock-ups more than grand failures. I don’t feel I have done that much this year, so maybe that’s it
9. Did you suffer illness or injury?
   Nope, well, a cold or two don’t count
10. What was the best thing you bought?
    Either my laptop, monitors, desk, phone or a nice pair of warm trousers. Sad i know, but they are really warm.
11. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
    None, they are all bastards
12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
    government, as always
13. Where did most of your money go?
    Train season ticket (£3000)
14. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
    Probably the run-up to the concert, doing one of those things is quite an addrenaline rush for a day, trust me
15. What song will always remind you of 2006?
    Feeder – under the weather
16. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    1. Happier or sadder?
       Bit of both, so i guess the same. Many things have made me happy, and others, sad
    2. Thinner or fatter?
       Same, although i am fitter thanks to more sport
    3. Richer or poorer?
       I’m guessing this is talking about money, so i would say richer
17. What do you wish you’d done more of?
    sleep, travel, visit more friends, work on my website
18. What do you wish you’d done less of?
    work, sit of bloody boring trains
19. How did you spend christmas?
    at home with familly, the way you should
20. Did you fall in love in 2006?
    don’t think so
21. How many one-night stands?
    tisk tisk, what a cheeky question. None, i dont go that way
22. What was your favourite TV program?
    Top Gear
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
    Not asin pure rage, but some people have annoyed me a fair bit
24. What was the best book you read?
    No idea, dont really read. Probably my little books of twisted proverbs
25. What did you want and get?
    Money, a bit of a change
26. What did you want and not get?
    sleep
27. What was your favourite film of this year?
    much as i hate to say it, probably The Devil wears Prada. I like girly films far too much
28. What was your favourite game of this year?
    Still burnout 2. I can play it with friends for hours and love it all. Not bad for a game ive never owned nor is new
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
    sleep, uni work etc and i was 20
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
    sleep, spending more time with friends, “finishing” my website
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
    warm in winter, cool in summer and something in between during the rest
32. What kept you sane?
    who said anything about me being sane?
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
    whatever the name of the girl in “The girl next door” is
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
    ID cards, tracking cars, Iraq
35. Who did you miss?
    my Grandad, plus a selection of friends from church as we all go our seperate ways
36. Who was the best new person you met?
    met so many good people…. Don’t make me pick one
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006:
    5mins sleep in bed is worth 3days sleep on the train.

Real entry to follow

Whatever the temperature is outside, standing around in it for 40mins in a thin coat and shirt is never going to be a good thing. I have only just begun to thaw on the train really. How I came to stand in these arse chillingly cold conditions is a matter at the forefront of my mind at present.

As is my custom on Fridays I was planning in getting into work about an hour before I need to. This works two fold. It means I get in in time to cover the early shift and it means I can get home normally in time to help with cubs, although today, just earlier.

Due to the time of year the trains are pretty fucked. They run a crap (reduced) service on the days between Christmas and new year. This is also the time they take to fix some of the bigger things they broke during the year. This has left me with long waits, slow, packed trains complete with more replacement buses than I want to shake a stick at.

Last night I looked at the train times online, all looked well. It seemed they had finished with the buses and I could get to work in a reasonable time. So this morning I left the house soon after 6:20 with the intention of getting the 6:27. I had to run rather faster than I wanted to. As I got there I read the board. My train was cancelled and the next train was at 7:05. I stood and weighed up the options for a moment. Given how cold it was this was a short moment.

I started walking home. I got to my front door, put my key in the lock, turned… Hmm, why isn’t it turning…. Wiggled the key a bit… Still no luck. The I realised there was a key in the other side of the lock. It was far too early to go knocking on the door. I was pissed off. Not least because as I walked home I was thinking at least I could grab the mince pie I had forgotten too…

I’m fucked off. i really dont give a shit about anything. i need sleep and i need time and i get neither. im being argumentative, aggravated and although some of its my fault i feel like it all is. im sure im being unjustly being made to feel like it all is. to anyone who says “get a life”. first tell me what the fuck a life is.

My morning began today at 6am. A silly time if ever I heard of one… Very little happened between the time of 6am and 6:25. At the new and improved silly time I said the words “oh that’s not good” as I re-awoke to realise I only had 5mins to leave the house to get my train. I am now sitting on said train with a somewhat “rushed” look about me and limited food in my stomach. As I have no food to eat and I dare not risk the train trolley “food” I shall proceed to explain the in’s and out’s of my week.

This week so far has been fairly ordinary, enjoyable, but nonetheless still fairly ordinary. There has been some badminton, some fixing of an old ladies internet connection and an element of tidying my room (which although it’s better than it was, it still requires a considerable amount of time).

The final piece in the puzzle this week is a pantomime for a local drama group I’m involved in. Tonight and half of tomorrow I will spend doing lights for a very cheesy rendition of Aladdin. Like many of the lighting jobs I do it will be a rush job. It will make the most of some pretty crap bits of kit and by some small miracle they may even thank me for my efforts (I cross my fingers now just in case).

As I’m watching Christmas approach I have a mixture of feelings. I do enjoy Christmas, but I’m almost looking forward to after Christmas just as much. Simply because as yet I don’t have too much to do. I’m sure there will be a shopping trip to Bluewater shopping centre and I know I have at least one birthday present to locate. I even know I have another pantomime coming up in a little over a month, but even with that I feel like I haven’t much going on. It will be nice to have a bit of a break, maybe even sleep late for once… Although as I sit here on the train that possibility seems quite remote. I know for starters that tomorrow morning will be spent making my room look considerably more presentable than it is now…

In other somewhat unrelated new I burnt my finger while working on my lighting rig last night at the dress rehearsal. This is now the second time I have scared a finger by melting the skin. Its only a small melt, but enough to make a nice little line.

I think its time to have a bit of a news-worthy items update. I mentioned a few days ago that I didn’t really live at home, I just slept there. Yesterday I realised that when I next have a evening in (which will be in about a week at the earliest) I will have been out each evening for over 3 weeks straight!

Saturday was spent shopping in Brighton with Jen. This was a lot of fun but it did involve the absolute madness of the busy shops. We had to queue in one of them for about 15 mins just to pay. As per usual whenever I goto Brighton the travelling is a real pain. We had to get a replacement bus because they were not running the trains between ThreeBridges and Brighton. That actually worked quite well on the way down, it wasn’t quite as handy on the way back. Just as were nearing Crawley on the way back the bus went up a bit of a hill, stalled and then wouldn’t start. So we sat around on the top floor for a while while another bus was sent. So we all pilled from one to the other. It was a bit late for tea, but not late enough for me to care.

Sunday was church in the morning followed by more time at church. You see we were decorating the youthclub room (in what can only be described as lilac (i didn’t pick)). So we cleared out the room first, then had lunch, then afterwards moved onto painting and suchlike. One rather fun thing was we going to do siloets of people in odd posses on one wall. To do this what we did was set-up some paper on the floor, have people lie-down and then they were drawn round to make their template. I did one in what I would like to call the “splat” pose. I shall put some photos of this whole even in my gallery soon. One I left there at about 6:30pm I went home for tea and then went back out with Jen just afterwards. No idea what we did but I’m sure it was fun…

Monday was not such a great day because it was Granddads funeral. I will leave that at that.

Yesterday was spent working, and then playing badminton with Jen (who is really rather good. Especially since she hasn’t played for several years). Worth also mentioning that she did 70 sit-ups in one go (after about half and hours badminton) which is also really good. I don’t want to talk about the rest of that evening….

So now that leaves me up-to-date with one last honourable mention. Yesterday I finally got an umbrella which is pretty essential in this country when commuting. The cool thing about mine is not only does the button on it make it pop open, it also closes it by itself! Trust me, its cool. For all the doubters or curious, ask me next time you see me. You will understand….

Last night I was given a rather difficult task. On the face of it appeared to be something could be done in 30 seconds, but in reality it took me all evening. To give myself a little credit I wasn’t working on it all evening, not even close, but it did dominate my mind.

I was asked to write a comment card for my granddads funeral this Monday. Because of how it as being done it is being sent off this morning.

I sat and looked at it for quite a while trying to sum-up what he meant to me on the space of a postcard. I realised I could do this. It actually brought me to tears and I was fighting them of for the rest of the evening. Then I considered leaving it blank or just signing my name. I realised people would probably think I was just being rude/insulting by effectively saying he didn’t mean anything to me. I wondered about simply explaining that I didn’t know what to put on the card because I could not find the words. I then realised I was turning it into a complicated writing exercise and put it down on my desk and left it.

I didn’t pick it up until just before I crawled into bed. I still didn’t know what to put and silly as it may sound I’m sure my hand was shaking a little.

I ended up just writing the first thing that came to mind at that moment. I don’t even remember what I put. I don’t want to remember what I put either. I put the card downstairs on the kitchen worktop without reading a single word of it.

I’m sure whatever I wrote wasn’t right, but at the end of the day I think all that matters is I’m there to mark respect for a man I’m finding it hard without.

I lead a strange life at the moment. I work in London during the day spending hours sitting in front of a screen tearing systems apart, working out what’s wrong with them and then fixing it. Its a mentally shattering job and if often leaves me not feeling up to much when I get home.

To add to the mix I have a fairly strict routine of things I do after work in terms of clubs and places where I help. These include 2 badminton clubs (one of which I help run) as well as both cub and explorer scouts groups that I go to. Then as one final thing I also have a few skills that seem in demand such as being able to fix computers and my interest in stage lighting and sound. These 3 abilities seem to be doing their best to fill up a good proportion of the time I have left.

I think then that all in all we can say that I’m quite busy. I have come to consider home as a place where I sleep, not where I live if that gives you any idea of how much time I spend there…

This does give me a few reasons why I haven’t made many journal entries of late. I can assure you I am still here (somewhere (on the train now as it happens)).

I was going to post some long complicated entry about a recent argument I had, but given my chat with Jen the other day I think it can wait, it requires more thought than I can muster now to turn it into something I want the world to be able to read…

For now I will simple give you two links:

The first is photos from my first ever thanksgiving which I was invited to by Jonners girlfriend Beth which was all very nice.

http://www.craigk.org/pictures/index.php?group=24

The other link is to a bit of code I was really happy I virtually got working last night… Note it doesn’t look quite right under Internet Explorer 6 (I don’t know about 7).

http://test.pleaseremoveyourfeet.com/ajax/drop_down/

I think that will do for now. I will try to update this a bit more often from now on providing my poor brain feels able.

I keep thinking I should be feeling really odd at the moment. I keep thinking I shouldn’t just be working as normal and life should not just be carrying on. It is though, and it’s not really bothering me…

Tonight my granddad died in the nursing home he has been living in for about the past 3-4 weeks. We all knew this was coming. To be fair it’s been coming for sometime and it was guessed he wouldn’t make it much longer. He was a smoker for most of his life and combined with a bad back this caused him huge amounts of trouble breathing. He had been in and out of hospital quite a number of times

Ok, I take some of that back, I think it just hadn’t hit me yet. I haven’t cried like this in quite some time, but I would rather finish this and get it out of so at least I can sleep.

I was just thinking about the following and it’s just triggered me and now I can’t stop:

The last time I saw him was about 2 weeks ago down in the home. I went down with my brothers and my dad to visit him and to show him the holiday photos he hadn’t seen. Alastair (my brother) is rather good at his art and he had always got along well on this subject with my granddad and they could both talk about painting and such for ages. Well Alastair brought down an oil painting which he has done for part of his art coursework and granddad thought it was a present for him. He was a bit upset when he was told he couldn’t keep it down there. We told him he could have it when it was marked. I knew full well he wasn’t going to live long enough to see it, and he didn’t.

And with that I think I just need to sleep.