draliman on life

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World series.

Do you prefer a bath or shower?
A shower. A bath sounds great in principle and it starts out great, but after a while you either stay in too long and you end up in lukewarm water and looking like a prune or it’s too hot and you end up all sweaty. Or perhaps I’m doing it wrong.

Plus a bath uses an immense amount of heated water and I know from personal experience that switching from showers to a bath increases your water bill by an insane amount.

If you had an unlimited shopping spree at only one store, which one would you choose? Why?
An Amazon distribution warehouse sounds good. I guess that counts as a “store” as they store stuff there, but if I choose to translate “store” as shop, possibly not :-(. How about somewhere that sells really expensive cars? No?

You’ve gotta give me one of them, so I’ll take Amazon. They sell everything. I’ll stock up on the best of the best!

If you could be one age for the rest of your life, what age would that be?
Early thirties, I think. That’s pre-aches and pains, but old enough to be all sorted out and for people to take me seriously as all grown up 🙂

List at least five movies that cheer you up.
That’ll be films that make me suddenly laugh out loud or feel-good films

• Expendables 2 (great cameos, loads of people getting shot)
• Planet Terror (horde of zombies getting chopped to bits by a helicopter rotor)
• Die Hard (the ultimate Christmas film)
• From Dusk Til Dawn (because, vampires)
• Starship Troopers (kill the bugs!)
• Aliens (kill the bugs!)
• Star Wars eps 4, 5 and 6

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
Last week at work I got a promotion! Now I’m a “Systems Architect“. I’m gonna architect the hell out’a this job. Next week I’m looking forward to sampling my new purchases. Death or glory awaits!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. This week’s questions were supplied by Emilio.

What is your earliest memory?
Memories are funny things. Sometimes I have a memory only to discover by various means that it never actually happened, or at least not the way I remember.

That said, I think my earliest memories are from around age 3/4/5. They’re from a house we moved out of when I was 5 so I know it was around then. Just vague snippets of my brother’s birthday and waiting for his name to be mentioned on the TV programme “Gus Honeybun’s Magic Birthdays” (Gus was a puppet who would do a handstand or whatever the person who wrote in asked for).

What was the last photo you took with your phone?
Upon checking it’s the picture of the cake I baked which I already posted here, so here’s the second-last picture I took (for my Instagram feed).

So… how do I get up in the cockpit then? Ladder? Anyone?

Have you ever danced in the rain?
I don’t dance. It’s better for everyone that way.

What is the longest you have gone without sleep?
While doing my PhD I pulled a few all-nighters in the lab, so I guess that would be around 30 hours or so. We had an experiment which needed constant attention and readings taken every 45 minutes or so as we gradually raised the temperature from -200C to 80C.

That’s put to shame by the 42 hours I went without food a couple of years ago. I just never got round to eating. Didn’t do me any harm!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

What’s your most memorable (good or bad) aeroplane flight?
I was en route to Cork (Ireland) for a job interview, but Cork was too foggy to land at. We circled around for hours while my presentation kept getting pushed back. Finally we landed at Shannon where I had a pint of Guinness before taking off again and arrived in Cork around six hours late. Obviously I missed my presentation and formal interview so we went for the interview over a meal at a five star hotel instead.

Result! And I got the job 🙂

How many bones, if any, have you broken?
I’ve never “officially” broken any bones, but I’m sure I’ve broken my little toes a few times. I read somewhere once that most people break their little toes many times over their lives. That could be an old wives’ tale, mind, but that “crack!” as you drive your toe into the coffee table lends weight to the myth!

If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? (guest can be dead, alive, famous or someone you just know)
That’s a tricky one, I don’t really know. I would go for three funny people though, so that there would be lots of laughs and no arguments 🙂

Make a Currently List: What are you reading, watching, listening to, eating, needing, wanting, and missing right now?
Reading: “Hotel Alpha” (Mark Watson) for the village book group and “Magic Shifts” by Ilona Andrews

Watching: Scream (the series), Jericho, How I Met Your Mother, Continuum and Archer on Netflix, Preacher on Amazon, Star Trek DS9 (again) and ER (again) on DVD

For lunch time/tea time/before bed watching I cycle through my favourites start to finish – Dr Who, Buffy, Angel, Bones, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, ER, all the Star Treks.

Listening to: All sorts! I’ve been listening to “The Pretty Reckless” a lot recently.

Eating: my cake!

I’m chickening out of “needing”, “wanting” and “missing” 🙂

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

How many languages do you you speak?
English. Some American English (courtesy of American TV). I can understand a little French from my school days and speak a tiny bit. I’m better at German but very out of practice.

What are some words that just make you smile?
Bunny. Kitten. Patches (I type it a lot as a substitute for “updates” on the computer and it always makes me think of a cute little doggy).

If you were the original architect of one existing building, which building would you select?
This one.

It’s the Longaberger building in Ohio. Apparently they make baskets. Isn’t it awful? If I designed this I’d be famous and notorious for ever!

Would you rather have telepathy or telekinesis? 
Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Telepathy pros:

• I could hear what other people are thinking 🙂

Telepathy cons:

• I could hear what other people are thinking about me 😦

Telekinesis pros

• I would never have to reach for the remote control again 🙂
• I could fling people across the room with but a thought 🙂

Telekinesis cons

• None 🙂

Telekinesis it is.

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

What is the most fun thing you did in school?
I most enjoyed school trips. There was a memorable trip to London where we visited the zoo and watched the play “Mousetrap” at the theatre, and I made new friends too. But imagine the bravery of the teachers taking a whole class of 12 year olds so far away for a whole weekend!

We also went on several trips around Cornwall and West Devon, including the highest spot in Cornwall, the amusingly named “Brown Willy” (which was recently voted among the top five rude place names in Britain!).

What is your favourite type of dog?  (can be anything from a specific breed, a stuffed animal or character in a movie)
Stuffed doggies!

The Lads.

You are invited to a party that will be attended by many fascinating people you never met.  Would you attend this party if you were to go by yourself?
Nooo, A thousand times no! And not if I wasn’t by myself either.

Complete this sentence:  Never In My Life Have I…
… chainsawed my own arm off for a drunken dare while singing the Zambian national anthem in a small mud hut in the Amazon rain forest.

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)?
My first moneymaking job was a summer job working for the council in their computer department. It was very much “the olden days” – mainframes and rows of big machines with tape reels spinning round. A lot of the time, I sat at the console waiting for the computer to tell me which tape it needed next, at which point I had to go and find it on the shelves and load it up.

It gave me a nice little “cache of cash” for starting university!

What is your favourite month of the year?
Most months have something going for them. The cold crispness and “winter smell” of December (plus Christmas of course!) and the warmth of July/August. Months which are not on my favourites list include

• January (back to work with a vengeance, a bit of a let down after Christmas)
• February (good job it’s short)
• March (could go either way)
• April (who knows what April will bring? A loose cannon, is April.)
• September (pretty pants)
• November (completely pointless)

Well, that’s half of them. Don’t even talk to me for half the year, apparently.

What three things in nature do you find most beautiful?
Lovely views (Tintagel, Cornwall).

Bubbling brooks (Golitha Falls, Cornwall).

Other-worldy peace and quiet (St. Nectan’s Glen, Cornwall).

List at least five of your favourite spices? (excluding salt and pepper)
Ha ha! I started Googling “difference between herbs and spices” and when I got as far as the “he” in herbs it auto-filled “difference between herpes and warts” 🙂

This is tricky – I’m more a “herb” person than “spice” person. I like all sorts of herbs – parsley, rosemary, thyme… spices not so much. Apparently chilli powder is a spice so that’s one. That’s got cumin in it, so I’ll have that one as well. I’ll also take curry powder which is “a blend of up to 20 spices” so that’s up to 22 total! What a cheat I am 🙂

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. This is a special holiday edition as in America last Monday there was a holiday called “Memorial Day” in tribute to the men and women who have died serving in the armed forces.

We in the UK also had a holiday on that day, however it was late Spring bank holiday.

Every country in the world has lost men and women in some kind of Armed Forces. When does your country celebrate or mourn their deaths?
In the UK this day falls on the nearest Sunday to November 11th. This is also true of the British Commonwealth, which is apparently now called the “Commonwealth of Nations” (who knew it had changed its name?).

Also, on 11th November at 11am, the nation observes two minutes of silence (this includes media). At work, everyone who isn’t already on the phone switches to “do not disturb” and we use the silence on the radio to time it. The timing is due to the signing of the armistice at the end of the First World War (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month).

It is common for people to buy and wear little paper poppies, which I imagine are symbolic of the poppy fields of France (poppies grew over some of the biggest battlefields).

What is your favourite holiday or holidays?
Crizzmuzz! I don’t like the three month build-up – I’m fed up with it by the end of November – but I like the growing excitement, the day spent with my parents, wrapping presents and watching the traditional Christmas film “Die Hard” the night before.

My Christmas jumper, modelled by me!

My high quality 100 foot Christmas tree flown in specially from Norway

How do you celebrate that holiday?
I’ve pretty much covered this in the previous question. I should learn to read ahead!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World.

What is your favourite go to beverage?  Water, coffee, tea, coke, soda (non-alcoholic)
Fizzy lemonade, Coke and fizzy water with lime cordial (all nicely chilled!).

Mmmm. Nearly no calories of tasty refreshment.

I just checked and I currently have over 30 litres of lemonade in the house. I wouldn’t want to run out.

Can you change a car tyre?
Well, probably. I had to do it a couple of times with a car I had years and years ago. The biggest mistake I make is jacking it up before loosening the wheel. I’d just have to find the tools – I assume they’re under the floor in the boot – and work out where the jack goes. Common with many cars these days, I have a “temporary spare” – a small, low-speed wheel designed to get you to a garage.

On the other hand, I might just call the AA (Automobile Association). I pay them enough and I haven’t called them out for well over a decade.

Are you a listener or talker?
Definitely a listener. I don’t do small talk, and I won’t talk in a group until I’ve at least got “the lay of the land” – evaluated personalities and so on.

Would you rather have no internet or no cell phone?
Whaaaat? Whaaaat? Noooo! I don’t like the sound of this situation at all. I guess if I choose “no internet” I won’t be able to get it on my mobile phone either, which would reduce it to “just a phone”. I rarely use that function!

So a choose… (drum roll)… no mobile phone!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. Short and sweet this week :-).

When do you feel most connected with others?
Tricky one that. I’m not a “connecting” sort of person, as a rule. There was one memorable occasion a couple of years ago when Dad and I went on a little trip back to his roots. He showed me around the tiny village where he grew up (just a collection of cottages, really), and we had a lovely pub lunch.

What daily habit would you like to introduce to your life?
I’d like to introduce a bit of exercise. A little walk would be good. Maybe if I got up half an hour earlier…

What one mini-little-adventure would you like to have in the coming week?
Ooh, I don’t think I would like an sort of adventure, mini or otherwise. I’m a creature of habit, me.

List things or events that changed your Life: It could be as simple as a book or meeting a certain person?

• Going to university
• Working in Germany
• Starting a new life and career
• Buying my little house