Older, but no wiser

It was never my intention to abandon blogging in favour of twittering (and still isn’t, although on the face of it, the evidence would seem to point to a contradictory conclusion). But twittering requires little in the way of deep or structured thought, which makes it a much better match for my current mental modus operandi.

Brought together and grouped, the first couple of weeks of twitterings do I suppose reveal something of what goes on in my head; a shape and structure, if you can call it that, which analytical thought would pass by without noticing.

Trivia

• I don't mind doing the shopping, I quite like doing the cooking - but I have no imagination when it comes to figuring out what to eat

• Sensory stimulation: It's nice when there's too much washing up for the dishwasher and some has to be done the old-fashioned way :-)

• Parcel delivery man arrived at the door wearing shorts. It's 3 degrees C out there - what's he trying to prove?

• Rescued a tiny mouse the cat brought in. Seemed barely alive indoors but perked up when it sniffed fresh outide air.

• Trimmed the low-hanging elderberry branches where they were rubbing on the felt of the shed roof as they move in the wind

• Really ought to give my blog a makeover - it has the feel of a room in an abandoned house, full of stuff that hasn't been touched in years

• Cat is head-butting my hand on the mouse, wanting strokes, while her tail tickles my chin

New job

• Counting down the days... start a new job (albeit in same dept of same employer) next week. Out of the frying pan into the fire?

• Totally knackered. Intense week of finishing Excel mega-workbook before new role starts on Monday. Square eyes and brain dead.

• New role, new responsibilities, new people, new location = 100% CPU usage = stress

• Huge widescreen monitor in the new office = total immersion computing. There's a world outside this screen??

• 'New' office has old-fashioned aircon - opening windows. Half of body nearest centre of room too hot, half next to window too cold!

• This wide screen is so wide I keep losing the mouse pointer!

• If you've got to work in a city, working in the heart of one of the world's great capital cities ain't such a bad option (W1 better than W12)

• Only been here 3 days, and the lady in the canteen smiles, says hello and knows I have a black coffee :-)

Motorcycling

• Grey skies depositing their load on the road - not my favourite motorcycling weather :-(

• Clocks back = riding home in the dark :-(

• 2nd morning of the season for winter motorcycling gloves. Roads quiet tho 'cos it's half term

• 2mrw's weather: "cloud will bring showers becoming increasingly heavy and wintry. It will feel cold". Ah, the delights of winter motorcycling

• First frost of the season - thank heavens for heated motorcycle handlebar grips!

• Icy road means no motorcycling today :-( Pain, because it's only the 300yds to the main road which is impassable. Clear after that

• Mind you, people-watching on the train can be fun. The novelty soon wears off though

• Is it going to thaw tonight, or do I shovel the ice off the drive so I can get the m/c out & not endure the tedium of public transport tmrw?

• I shovelled. It was a mistake putting a coat on though...

• Bright sun, dead ahead, low in sky = monochrome 2D world = rather less than ideal conditions for motorcycling

• Left untinted driving specs at home today. Bugger. Hate using varifocal specs for motorcycling - peripheral vision is crap. Glad to be home

• Scanning through my first 50 odd tweets, motorcycle related matters top the charts. Is that really the most noteworthy feature of my days?

• Switching from riding a motorbike in traffic lanes to between lanes is like dropping an X-wing into the equatorial trench of the Death Star

• Route to new office is same as I used to cycle a few years ago. Reminds me of the fun I used to have playing in traffic on a push-bike.

Photography

• Ooooo... just discovered Canon flash (without a Canon camera) I have will work as a slave with the Olympus 8080. Creative possibilities...

• Oh for image stabilisation - even at 1/200s, handheld macros at arms length still suffer from camera shake

• Went to look at the Panasonic G1 DSLR http://tinyurl.com/4ral4f Very compact, nice to hold, still can't think of it as a 'real' DSLR though

Music

• Listening on headphones to Bach (English Suite no 4 played by Andras Schiff) as I work. Or not work - totally in awe of Bach's genius.

• Ah, boy's toys - a new pedal (chorus) for my bass pedalboard, arrived yesterday, fitted today :-) No space for any more :-(

• Just playing along to a CD I'd forgotten I had, by a Canadian Band by the name of Dyad. Nothing lifts the spirits like good music :-)

• Favourite Bob Dylan track - Tangled Up In Blue

• ... or maybe Jokerman...

• Jamming along to Joe Jackson (love Graham Maby's bass lines). Fingers still working even if head isn't

• Finally got around to hooking up PC, CD, FX, pitch shift, bass, all via mixer for an instant jamming set-up. Cool, if I say so myself.

Thoughts

• Wonder why Gmail gives me this quote in the context-based link at the top - "If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style." :^)

• A day of half-hearted nothings so far

• Waiting... for nothing. For inspiration? For someone to find the on switch? Filling time with doings and nothings

• Oscar Wilde, paraphrased: Work is the curse of the thinking classes

• The world seems a friendlier place this morning, knowing that several tens of millions do have some sense after all

• The main reason I'm blogging less and less is that communication is just so darn difficult

• Is there a point?

• - a point to whatever I happen to be doing at the time?

• It is possible to go through every day without really thinking. It's habit-forming; I do it all the time.

• Coming to the conclusion I just don't do social in any way shape or form. Solitary, that's me.

Weather

• The sky mutates slowly from the faint orange glow of reflected street lights to a grey autumn dawn. Time for a shower

• @euan ooooh, snowing here too - if you can call this wet soggy stuff snow! Actually, pretty big dollops of it coming past the window now

• snow's settling on the grass now

• more snow on Friday, please - maybe it'll keep the bloody-US-import-trick-or-treaters at home. Bah, humbug

• Power failure last night plus circuit breaker trip when it came back on in the wee small hours equals no heating this morning. Brrr!!

• Still a thin patch of snow left in a shady corner of the garden

• Still and quiet outside. Must have had a lot of rain in the night - the garden pond is full to the brim. The air too is heavy with moisture

Life

• SMS working again from/to my son Paul in Zambia - technology out there is all a bit flakey - good to feel that contact alive

• Practical recycling: helping my son sand down an old sideboard he got for nothing via Freecycle, ready to stain and polish

• Only primitive internet connections in Lusaka so it's great to see pics and news from my son in Zambia: http://ourafricanlife.blogs...

• I wonder if I'll ever go rock climbing again? All that gear sitting in the garage just waiting to be used; I miss it.

• Up at sparrow-fart to drive 200 miles to my daughter's graduation

• Back again, 15 and a half hours later. Long day; need more caffeine

• looking at pics of my daughter's graduation yesterday. Mine was a lifetime ago (or several) in another world