Mike’s Meandering Mumbles

I have recently bought yet another computer, I now have three Dell XPS, a 1220, 1330 and 1730, quite apart from the ancient desktop used for messenger and so on in the Phils and our son’s big laptop. And it comes time for a reshuffle; I will use the big XPS, Alice will have the 13″ and the little one will take over duty in the Phils.

And why has my voice been silent for so long (as if anyone had an interest); simply because as I transferred data and programmes around I cocked up big time. I am never very happy when Alice is away and she and Alistair flew off on holiday two weeks before me. I am now aware that not only am I unhappy without Alice, I am also stupid. For example, I decided I would rather have two hard disks separately working in the 17″ rather than having them set up as a RAID system. So I unraided it (is there such a word) and proceeded to delete everything on the back-up disk. Which would have been fine if I had done so rather than delete the C: drive. So the reinstall started, guess what needs to be installed first -  Mediadirect, guess what I turned to install last then finding that it would wipe the C: drive again. I felt just the guy who designed this prime example of architectural glory, I am sure.

I have seemed to be chained to one or other laptop for days, well nights really since I always succeeded in having one of the XPS working so I could keep going in the office and then get back to working on the others in the evening. Why I was unhappy I do not know, as I did not have time to miss Alice properly! But I sure could have done with a computer screen that gave aid such as this one. Or something else useful would have been to have been provided with a sensible message to direct my attention elsewhere.

But through all my struggles I cannot avoid that frisson of surprise that there is not a single soul who worries about me and my efforts. Even Alice is so busy buying the remainder of the materials for our eldest son’s house and playing with our first granddaughter that she does not have time to think of me very much. With all the computer stuff going on I have not done my exercise for a while but am proud to say that I have maintained my much reduced alcohol intake. I guess I should be proud of that!

And now the majority of the computers are working as they should I am getting overwhelmed by the remaining tasks of setting up the new big laptop yet again, so as a cheerer upper I have already booked myself to the freeflow wine Friday brunch tomorrow, although it will not be as much fun without Alice and Alistair. And now I am contemplating other things and hence the net is lucky enough to have my mumbles yet again.

Our youngest has just flown in from school in UK, full of life and taller yet again. Unlike me he has a sports interest and I am very pleased to see that he has a trophy for being highest goal scorer in the under 14s Shropshire basketball team. Something that can never be repeated since he is now fourteen!

We are a close family and it was so nice that he is back so we immediately set out for one of his favourite Italian restaurants, complete with singing wait staff. In 16 odd months here in Doha we have always had the male staff as singers but we managed to get a lady songster for a change this time.

He got the standard lectures, don’t get into gangs, study hard and being first here and then shortly in the Philippines, perhaps not quite so hot but still well above UK, drink plenty of fluids. So I gave him a small can to carry with him in case of problems.

There is no doubt this will prevent difficulties. My personal difficulty was that I had no time for my walking and other exercise but that is minor and not a real concern.

What is a concern, as always, is that they will shortly fly off to the Philippines ahead of me. And once again for a couple of weeks I will be desolate, especially since this will be the first time I am trying to get through the period without the solace of a vast JD and wine intake.

But they need to fly to get the warning signs up and the car repaired and so on, I am not quite sure what is wrong with the car but there does seem a bit of trouble and it is far better fixed before I get there as my rotundity prevents easy rides on Jeepneys and the like.

While one might think that at 14 he is not really a child any more we do like to take precautions, such as the signs, as we and others live adjacent to the basketball court and we want no more repetitions of the ball through the window episode, remembered not fondly but too well!

He can be really helpful on the farm, moving the animals around and so forth, a very necessary task although it is much more often the pigs than other livestock but the fact remains that he is an adolescent and no matter how intelligent they may be nevertheless we all know where young males keep their brains.

Much as I like to be highbrow, or at least give an impression of that, the fact remains that I am as basic as they come. Having had one operation to remove part of the bowel and still having diverticular disease my mind is much occupied with the state of my bowels. The fibre intake is kept high and a check taken on the result. This was not how I viewed the future as a younger man! But the good thing is I tend to type 4 (I have a vague feeling that I am providing too much information here) which is all to the good.

But suitable foods do make an immense difference so I feel I should bring the World’s attention to the fact that out there one can find the most useful of mixes to ensure a decent motion.

I always feel if you keep your eyes open you can find shops that cater for everything although personally I feel purchase of this particular item is one step too far.

And so many other things similarly strike me as a step too far, and it seems that sex is not a divider in this as both genders carry out, in my opinion, a definite crime against manners when they indulge their liking for investigating new areas to manure.

So whether female, with a love of the sink, or male, with a love of gadgets, I do beg you to think before excreting.

As I am a deep thinker myself I do like to comtemplate matters but sometimes have a concern about whether I am reaching the right conclusions.

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I saw, on Times Online, a slightly interesting article about the B52’s just recently, and I realised that in spite of my love for the dead Js (Janis, Jim and Jimi) that there are only a few people that I have made a conscious effort to ensure that I had every non-bootleg album. The B-52’s obviously since they started me thinking of it and how sad I was when Cosmic Thing brought them to the attention of the masses but it certainly had some good tracks such as this live version of Love Shack.

Billy Idol was another I tried to keep up with although I floundered at Billy singing Christmas songs, no White Wedding (especially the long version) was my favourite.

The Cowboy Junkies are another, The Trinity Session caught me and since then I have had to have them all although, dare I say it, I am not amazingly fond of Trinity Revisited. They are of course slightly less noisy than much of my taste and I did not catch on to them immediately having missed the first album, Whites off Earth Now, but once caught I remained faithful. A nice quiet accoustic Misguided Angel shows that my taste is slightly more eclectic than most people think.

Possibly it is my love of Motörhead, through all the personnel changes that Lemmy has had in his band, that leads people astray but even they can have their quieter moments as Whorehouse Blues shows. Perhaps this is a rather more relevant example of their music. And of course my favourites were the albums where Philthy Animal was on drums, I have had a liking for drummers on occasion, Ginger Baker, Keith Moon (wonderful man that he was, if possibly a shade destructive and indeed self destructive).

They, drummers, are a breed apart of course and this may explain why cooper keeps dropping by and giving, usually interesting,   comments. For some reason I have only just cottoned on to the fact that he is a drummer, although I should have guessed I suppose from his sense of humour. However his new masthead certainly gives the game away. And I am reliably informed that he can play better than Moon the Loon, possibly because Moonie is dead and does not really get on the beat any more.

But I regret to say that cooper, like so many other bloggers or posters, has succumbed to cat stuff on 14th July 2008. I have my own liking for them, having had odd-eyed white longhairs, Persians and others over the years, in spite of being more of a dog man in the Philippines. It’s just that there seems to be a shade too much about them on the net. However I shall add my own take on the animals with this animation.

But enough of this as I am having a busy spell at work and am having to seek what time I can for other things but I do like to do the upper so you can do the lower.

As I was being driven around recently I took this photo showing it was fairly warm outside, and if you are lazy to click on the photo it is reading 59C. In fact it is the time of year when we reverse things, with a water tank on the roof and large water storage heaters in each bathroom it suddenly, about now, becomes necessary to change the tap usage, switch off the heater and use the sunwarmed (well heated!) water from the cold tap as the hot water and the water from the heater as the colder element in one’s bath or shower water.

And the funny thing is that everything then seems to reverse, so much is to be seen from the small pleasure of seeing a Coke dispenser being loaded into a Pepsi wagon and probably spirited off to a nasty death somewhere, to the fun of watching the reverse cycle-riding that erupts as people’s brains get confused.

There are less useful changes, the need to park one’s car in the kitchen and sleep in the garage is always and irritant, but personally approve I of the way kids have to take to giving the bottle to their parents, it compensates somewhat for all those disturbed nights when they were tiny.

But the change from cute young girls to piratical gun toters is less easy to accept. But then ladies have always had that dichotomy that makes it hard for us poor males to understand what they might be thing at any particular time.

But it can be frightening to realise that their stress relief plans can be rather worrying if you are somewhat anti-violence as I am.

Yep, one cannot just forget these little upsets in life, although I remained cheerful in Emergency as can be seen here. Since the last time I had been in hospital it was to have an ingrown toenail treated this was far better. Don’t let anyone disparage the unpleasantness of such a toenail, and in spite of the injections I now know why pins under nails was used as a torture.

While in hospital I had time to read the local English language papers, where concern was being expressed due to the number of crosses now seen here “hanging from car mirrors (interior presumably) and round peoples necks”.  Indeed I wear one myself so I decided that the old sign of the fish would be safer to be worn and arranged my hospital footwear correspondingly.

Which reminds me that in the paper there was also something about shoes being stolen from outside a mosque, which is a bit naughty to my mind, and certainly explains why now one often sees protection on shoes left outside. Of course the other way is to use flip-flops that no-one else could possibly want to steal.

While discussing shoes don’t you sometimes wonder about womens’ brains, the idea of wearing high heels is anathema to me; so thank goodness I am male. Although to be honest my own regular choice of shoe has its own problems if you have a pig farm since piglets have an insatiable desire to sniff at Crocs!

And so to prove myself a half-wit I place this example of male and female brains to inform the world of the differences.

I have never been a great follower of “The Strokes” but I have just downloaded the first album, “Is This It?” to give them a try. Should I not be enthralled I will just wind back my life a while. I remember the video cassette rewinders but did not realise that one was available for DVDs also. Which virtually guarantees that If I believe in them then I should believe in life rewinders as well.

And there is good reason to feel a rewind would be nice. I woke up last Thursday and found my leg a little loathe to work. As my left knee has been known to be a bit wonky I did not concern myself  over much although requiring the wall to maintain balance in the shower seemed a bit excessive. And off I went to work but unlike the normal leg problem this did not improve with time and eventually I was off to a doctor; shortly after that I was travelling rather fast (with my wife) towards the emergency at Hamad Hospital. Rather fast because our driver likes us and went into panic mode in his endeavours to get us there quickly!

We had not been there before but luckily my GPD helped us out and we soon found ourselves outside the place. And the triage selection in Emergency fired me up to the front of the queue and for the first time I was told that a minor stroke had occurred. Rather irritating when you consider the amount of red wine I drink to ensure a healthy heart.

I was too late for that first three hour post nasty clot dissolver and in any case since it appeared to have happened during my sleep there was no way of knowing when it had actually occured so being dumb enough to go to work immediately following such an incident did not really set me back.

I was sent up to a ward when a bed became available and found myself in a four bedder with a Yemeni and two other assorted arabs. As a world wanderer I find nothing wrong with that, although my feelings changed by the evening as they slept all day and had somewhat noisy visitors in the evening up until midnight. Since Alice and I sleep early at the best of times this was not pleasant. And we both suffered since there was an extending chair by my bed that went out into a bed and Alice stayed with me, only rushing off for a shower and a change each morning. My cleanliness was a more difficult matter as the hospital is wonderful but the toilet/shower at the end of our ward was not quite so good. Not that this appeared to matter to the other patients since I was the only user of the shower  component in four days, with two of my compatriots eventually being ambulant I felt that they might like a wash but apparently not.

Anyway I had all sorts of test and everything was coming up clean from MRI to doppler ultrasound and others, But they checked out my drugs and although Alice always takes everything I need when ever I see a doctor to prevent interactions if I need something else it seemed they did not like the mix I had. This may have had something to do with it as they decided I had not had a clot in the brain but a spasm in one of the arteries up there. And it seems from the MRI that the neurons were not affected so that my brain should be working as well as it ever did (so not all that bright then).

Since then I have done some research on strokes, obviously, with my favourite being the one below, how a single penstroke can be made into such a picture is beyond me. The guy must have been something else and how I wish I had any artistic talent whatsoever.

Unfortunately this does not really come over too well in the above resized version and, as ever, I am too damn idle to bother to link to the picture on the web.

Besides I am too much in my own head at the moment considering my mortality and remembering my first wife and her brave fight againt leukaemia. If there was ever some-one who fought the Grim Reaper to the very end it was her; I have been incredibly lucky to have had two very good marriages.

It seems only moments since we were last at an airport and yet I have been organising tickets for the next flight for our youngest to visit for the summer holiday already.

I am looking forward to seeing him again even though he is probably taller than I am by now, as can be seen last time he was already taller than Alice! And yet it seems moments only since he was a tiny creature not fit for much other than to spread sweetness and joy (or something similar) in all directions.

Now that job is taken by our first grandchild, as I have mentioned before and she certainly is a charmer, as even Alistair can agree without losing to much of his 14 year old distain for “kids”.

His time of course is spent mainly in perfecting those more adult things that amuse the teens. And why not, what with the SATS and his basketball he is heavily involved with plenty already and hardly needs to take on much else other than enjoyment.

And, one nice thing, when he gets to us our world will once again be filled with laughter and jokes.

Although Elephant Red made me fat I have a great liking for another beer, Red Horse, a strong Philippine Beer; although in fact they do not put the alcohol level on the bottle. I can quite see why the poor Prohibition pressed working man should have found a need to demonstrate.

These days, of course, more people have access to motorised transport of their own, so to show my caring nature I advocate a certain amount of restraint. We don’t want to have people hurting themselves after all.

But there are indications that the world is changing and possibly there will be less need for the “Don’t Drink and Drive” slogan, useful as it has been in the past.

And now that beer comes so well packaged there is no excuse for not availing oneself of every opportunity that comes around for a quiet sip.

All of us boozers are naturally aware of the problem with beer, that requirement  to rush off to accommodate nature as it places pressure upon us. But it is a simple fact of life that we must get used to without concern. Thank Goodness that so many useful places are appearing around the world for the convenience of the modern man.

But at the risk of exposing myself, a risk a too swift turn from the convenience also provides, as an aging hippy type with too few memories of the sixties (which I am told proves I enjoyed them) I must say that there was one drug that I preferred above all others and I am glad to see it is now advertised as a precursor to a wonderful life.

To my surprise “Cage the Elephant”, a London based band, turned out to be from Kentucky, a place dear to my heart due to its being the home of Bourbon, although I (regrettably?) tend to favour the dear old Tennessee whisky, JD. So they set me off on more elephantine thoughts. One cannot of course overlook the chance of a further look at the vast quantities they can produce. It makes some-one suffering from a slightly enlarged prostrate feel very ineffective!

But as a farmer, and a person who hopes he treats his animals well, one needs to consider one’s animals’ wellfare. For instance if they are to muck out the pigs we always issue them with wellie boots. Such little things make them much happier and that has consequences well worth while. After all most non-elephant people do not realise that in the wild they will reach up for fruits and that it is this capability that allows us to entertain tourists by encouraging the animals to do what comes naturally, but in a ritualised manner.

The fact is normally they take to show business like a duck to water, but there are the occasional slip-ups, made more troublesome by the size of the creatures (and didn’t “The Creatures” produce some good music?) luckily they are tough animals and hurting themselves through a minor slip is very unusual.

But we have to take care, as far as we are concerned lip service to safety and healthy living is not enough so we always make sure they have a decent holiday. Although to be honest I find that their adventure holidays are a little too strenuous for me at my age.

No, I’m afraid that these days just trying to catch a bus is quite enough excitement for me.

One of the nice things about living in the Philippines is the flora and fauna. Personally I have put up some nest boxes to help some species as they have a hard time looking after themselves. It is so very interesting to view them as they seek to make their own nests but I fear that human assistance is usually necessary.

As pleasant as it is to have such great animals living in our trees, there are a few irritations. Let’s be honest there are times that the dawn chorus is a shade overpowering, particularly after a heavy night. But nothing comes without a downside,  I guess.

The other thing that we gain is the French style of fertiliser as the creatures are really capable of a great deal of production in that direction. As is proven by this picture that we took while  visiting the Elephant Sanctuary in Malaysia. there are times though when they are a little more secretive in their actions especially when they may have overly imbibed Elephant Red, a delectable potion that really was the root cause of my major waistline explosion about twelve years ago. But the real disaster was that after getting me addicted they took the beer off the market. Most unkind I thought!

And so I occasionally clench my fist as I think of the past and its delightful beers that are no more. Never mind, look to the future always and trust that we can amuse the occasional browser.