draliman on life

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

Have you ever owned a rock, pet rock, or gem that is not jewellery?
Oh goodness, yes.

I’d had him since he was tiny. We were the best – the very best – of friends. We did everything together, went everywhere together. When I was down, he was the only one who could cheer me up. When he was down, I did the same for him. Whenever I came home from school he would be there, waiting at the the window watching out for me so we could spend our evening having fun together. And oh, the fun we had!

Then, one dark and stormy day, I sneaked out of the house to play in the park. As I reached the far side of the road, I heard him behind me. I had left the garden gate open! He approached the road, the busy road… a car was coming, the driver not paying attention, coming closer and closer to my bestest buddy, close, closer…

Hang on, did you say “rock”? I thought you said “dog”. Ask me the question again.

Have you ever owned a rock, pet rock, or gem that is not jewellery?
No.

What is your greatest strength or weakness?
I’ll do both! My greatest strength is my supreme awesomeness in all situations. My greatest weakness is my tendency to exaggerate my strengths.

What makes you feel grounded? 
I’m not really a “feeling grounded” sort of person. I’m always doing something! However, just sitting and looking at lovely views will do the trick. A stream, the waves… Here’s the lovely sunrise taken from my back door yesterday.

Would you rather never be able to eat warm food or never be able to eat cold food?
Oh dear, what a choice to have to make. But I’m very fond of my chilli and pizza and whatnot so I’ll keep the warm food and ditch the cold.

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

If you were given a boat or yacht today, what would you name it?  (You can always sell the yacht later)
I would call it “The Happy Wanderer” as I’d be too scared to sail it anywhere so it would be ironic. And it would be a nice cheerful name when I came to sell it.

Which of Snow White’s 7 dwarfs describes you best?  (Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey) Plus what would the 8th dwarf’s name be?
In common with a few others, I guess “Sleepy” because I’m always tired. An ex of mine once even “forced” me to go to the doctor to get my thyroid checked. I can also be quite “Bashful” sometimes, and various people call me “Doc” on occasion.

As for the 8th dwarf, I don’t think “Grumpy” goes far enough. We need a truly nasty dwarf, hence “Asshole”.

Name a song or two which are included on the soundtrack to your life?
I know so many songs my mind has gone blank. Something about a promising start followed by a complete car-crash of a time ending with everything being okay. Anything come to anyone’s mind?

Complete this sentence:  I like watching…
Ooh, keep it clean, keep it clean… little bunny rabbits frolicking in sleepy summer meadows.

I also like watching water bubbling along little streams.

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. Week 36 already! Hello, September.

List 2 things you have to be happy about.
Netflix. PS4. What? I’m shallow, me. You wanted something deeper? Friends and family. There you go 🙂

If you could take a photograph, paint a picture or write a story of any place in the world, what and where would it be?
I’d love to visit New Zealand. Not just for the Hobbitses, though that’s a big reason! But New Zealand looks like such a lovely place. Shame it’s a bazillion miles away.

Should children be seen and not heard?
Absolutely! In fact, let’s not see them either.

Oooonly joking!

Children need to express themselves so they can grow. However, there also needs to be some discipline. I was recently in a restaurant where the parents let their toddler run around screaming the whole time.

It must be difficult for parents to find the right balance.

List at least five of your favourite first names.

• Blade
  
• Skylark
• Wishbone
• Ranger
• Butterbean
• Rainbow

I can’t wait to have kids, they’ll love me forever, on account of their awesome names.

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. Just a quick one this week as I’ve been ill for days, hardly slept and can’t concentrate.

Do I hear tiny violins? Playing for me? Aww…

What is your favourite comfort snack food?
I don’t snack as a rule, but I would choose chocolate or some sort of chocolate-covered biscuit.

Is the paper money in your possession right now organised sequentially according to denomination and with the bills right side up and facing the same way?
I’ve just got two ten pound notes in my wallet at the moment and yes, they are arranged neatly. If I have five pound notes as well they will be in front of the tens (they’re smaller) and twenty pound notes go behind the tens (they’re bigger). I rarely have twenty pound notes, though. You need to take a lot out of a cash machine to get twenties and I don’t use cash all that much. Only for the village market, hair cuts, that sort of thing.

If you were a mouse in your house in the evening, what would you see your family doing?
By “family”, that would be just me. The little mousie would see me get home, have my tea while watching whatever I’m currently working my way through (Star Trek DS9 and Stargate Atlantis), play some PS4 game, watch some Netflix and then watch whatever is currently on my “just before bed” list (ER at the moment).

Would you rather not be able to read or not be able to speak?
I’d rather not be able to speak. I don’t speak much and that would mean I wouldn’t have to talk to people on the phone any more. I’d hate not to be able to read.

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

Would you travel into outer space?
Hell yeah. Not in one of these new so-called spaceships we have, though. They sound rather dangerous. I want to go in style, get beamed up and then go to warp speed. I’d like to visit the pleasure planet of Risa, please.

Which country/city in the world (that you have never been to) would you most like to visit and why?
Can anyone guess? I bet regular readers can. I would go to Matamata, New Zealand. Because that’s where Hobbiton is! I could visit the Hobbits! Whoo-hoo 🙂

What could you do to breathe more deeply today?
Take a deeper breath? Is this to do with being calm? If so, I’m always pretty calm 🙂

Complete this sentence:  This creamy peanut butter sandwich could really use some…
… chucking in the bin. Yuck, the very idea of peanut butter sounds wrong. It sounds like peanuts (yuck) mashed up in butter. (Full disclosure – I’ve never eaten peanut butter.) It’s not such a big thing here. I don’t think it was around at all when I was little, though you can buy it now. I think it’s an American thing.

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

If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?
Pizza. Piiiiiizzzzaaaa. Pizza. With pepperoni, Chorizo, loads of cheese. I assume I get to choose an endless supply of dessert too? I made myself the pizza described above yesterday, and I also made another Victoria sponge yesterday morning and had some for dessert so I’ll choose that. This time I used blackcurrant jam and remembered to frost the top!

What is the worst thing you ate recently?
I haven’t eaten anything bad recently. I’m trying to remember the last time I ate something bad. I usually eat something I’ve made and if we go out it’s to places we usually go and I have the same things (adventurous, aren’t I?).

You are comfortable doing nothing? For long stretches of time?
Probably not. I can’t remember the last time I was doing nothing so it’s hard to tell!

List of Jobs You Think You Might Enjoy: Even if you aren’t thinking about a career change, it can be fun to think of other jobs you might enjoy.

• Fighter pilot. I feel the need… the need for speed! Now I want to watch Top Gun again.
• Rally car driver. I feel the need… you get the idea.
• Forestry Commission person. I like the idea of spending my day wandering around the woods checking on the trees and what not.
• International jet setter type person. That may not be an official job, though.

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

What is your favourite part of the town/city you live in.  And what Country do you live in?
I live in Cornwall, a county in England, which is part of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), which is part of the United Kingdom (GB and Northern Ireland).

I live in a very small village. I don’t really know my favourite part. My little house, maybe?

Would you rather wear clown shoes every day or a clown wig every day?
No. No clown anythings for me thank you very much.

If I had to and it was every day it would have to be the hot itchy wig. How could I drive to work wearing clown shoes?

Which way does the toilet paper roll go? Over or under?
Over, of course! The majority of people are “over” people. Also, although it was never explicitly mentioned, I refer you to Seth Wheeler’s original toilet roll holder patent. “Over”, thank you very much.

Picture via cnet.com, but since it’s a patent I’m assuming it’s public domain

What do you do to make a living or during the day?  If you are retired what mostly occupies your day? Or if you are a student what are you studying?
I work in IT as a “System Architect“. I basically combine hardware, software, databases and so on to create a working system. I was doing the job for a year or so before it was made official a couple of weeks ago and I got the title 🙂

Exciting, no?

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!