Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[Alex]

Ah, the joys of children.

Coming up to midnight last night, me and Kristi decided to head to bed for a bit of fun. We were cuddling and kissing in the hall when we just heard this sort of evil giggling coming from the bedroom as Ash seemed to say "Oh hell no you aren't."

I think Ash want's to be an only child.

He woke up early this morning, so no chance then either. Kristi had to get up with him around five this morning. I've sent her back to bed for a rest now though. I've put Ash down for a nap too so peace and quiet reigns. At least for the moment.

Can't wait for work to finish tonight and then I have a nice, long weekend off. Hoping the Con is a good one although we are seeing a few worrying signs.

Watching another talk on WW2, and then I think I need to watch a bad movie. It's been a few days since I've watched one.

[indianasmith]

My wife and I had twins and we used to joke that they were born with natural romance detectors!
One reason they never had siblings.

[Trevor]

I never had kids: one of my many failings in life 

[Alex]

I never had kids: one of my many failings in life 

Any night me and the wife feel like getting romantic you are quite welcome to borrow one...

[Alex]

And we are back from the con. It was good, although I don't think we are going to attend the second day and all the panels. Sam Jones did not disappoint. Seemed to be a really nice guy (as with one exception everyone we know who has met him says he is). Anyway here are some photos from the day.


Ash would not pose nicely for a photo in his Ming outfit. Just after this he decided to throw up and we'd to take him out of it so he didn't get to meet Sam Jones wearing it.




Hey you guys!




Kristi was a bit surprised that I wasn't interested in meeting Gil Gerrad. I explained to her, he got Buck Rogers cancelled.




Battlestar Galactica meets Buck Rogers.




Street Hawk, KITT and the A-Team van.













Ash meets Muffan (or was it Muffet, something like that).

[Alex]

Some of the loot drops from today.

[Alex]

Both my grandfathers fought in world war two. They also both died before I was old enough to understand much about that. My mothers father died when I was 6 or 7. I have a few memories of him. Mostly of him being ill in hospital. He'd been shot during the war, and the bullet was lodged in a place they couldn't remove it from. In his later life this caused problems that eventually killed him in the early 80s.

On my fathers (spit) side, my granddad died when when I was twelve after a series of strokes.  I knew slightly more about his war service than I did about the other one. His best friend and him had been at Dunkirk. He'd promised his friends mum he'd make sure he brought her son back alive. The guy was wounded on the beach in the evacuation from Dunkirk, and my grandfather picked him up to carry him. His sergeant pulled out his gun, pointed it at him and told him that if he didn't drop his friend and stop slowing them down then he'd shoot him.

Just imagine being put in that position. You can try to save your best friend and you can both die, or you can abandon him. Maybe the German's wlil pick him up and he'll get medical care. Maybe he won't. On the battlefield all the rules of warfare that other people set are a very remote thing. Can you 100% honestly say what you would have done? Anyway, never havng been in that exact position I do not judge the man. All I can say is that I have fond memories of the man (unlike his wife, but that is another story).

Tonight I found out that my granddad on my mothers side had taken part in the liberation of a concentration camp (I am finding this out third hand so I don't have the full story, or which camp it was). How they'd been trying to feed prisoners, and they'd made a thin soup for them, that they then had to water down even further because their stomach's couldn't handle the food.

[Alex]

Went up to Glasgow today instead of going for the second day of the Con. A while ago I'd promised Elizabeth I'd take her to the Harry Potter shop up there, so we went there, Tokyo Toys (anime shop), the Disney store and then I popped into Static. Picked up the new edition of X-Wing. Will see if it is any good  before splurging out for the conversion kits for the 1st ed ships or not. At £50 per faction and at least 5 factions planned it could get pretty damn expensive.

Heading back home tomorrow, but it has been a fun break.

[Alex]

Looking like a decent enough day for headng back home.

Well rain isn't pouring down from the sky. That counts. Ash was up around 5 am this morning. I gave him a cuddle until he fell asleep in my arms, lying between me and Kristi. He lay that way for another couple of hours and by the time he woke back up we were getting up anyway.

[Alex]

Ever challange your own beliefs and preconceptions? Do you take the time to look at what you believe in and compare it to others. I mean really look at things from other peoples point of view, find out why they have come to the conclussions they have and find out if just perhaps they are right and you are wrong?

Yeah, me neither. While I accept other people have points of view, and depending on the person I am sometimes interested in learning how someones life has gotten them to where they are, I am not particularly interested in altering my world view overly much. I like how I look at the world. Always with some cynasim mixed up with hope (generally I like to plan for the worst, but hope for the best). Not that I am completely closed to changing my mind on things. That just takes effort and these days  I have other, more fun things to be getting on with.

Think the kind of mood I am in today, if I had a normal job I'd just quit and enjoy a week or two off before looking for a new one. I've been enjoying my time off. Less than five years to go until I get access to (some) of my pension though, so I reckon it is worth hanging on if just for that.

Even if I do have to remind myself of that on a regular basis.

Got one of my D&D players coming up to visit next weekend. He want's to try some of our boardgames. Figure 'Pandemic', 'Dead of Winter' and 'Firefly' for sure. Maybe some Munchkin varients.

[Trevor]

Ever challange your own beliefs and preconceptions? Do you take the time to look at what you believe in and compare it to others. I mean really look at things from other peoples point of view, find out why they have come to the conclussions they have and find out if just perhaps they are right and you are wrong?

I always do challenge my own beliefs and standards but I'm always open to other peoples' opinions, so long as that opinion isn't "South Africa sucks and I hate it."

[Alex]

The guy who was coming to visit next week it turns out is arriving tomorrow. Which is just as well, since I'll be spending the weekend he'd be visiting travelling down to deepest englandshire for a week that Sunday.

Dan Akroyd is talking about Ghostbusters 3. It's been what 20 years? Let it go man. I mean sure I loved the first film, but the second and the remake... well not so much.

But hey, the cartoon was alright too when I was a kid.

Another rehersal tonight. They've told Kristi that as the plays we are doing do not require props there is no need for her to attend. Thing is, I am only going so we could do one of her hobbies together, so if there is no point in her going, then...

Got my signed stuff framed and up on the wall, although I'd to move my blue prints for Star Wars pictures Kellie gave me last year. Still need to mount the schematics of Vader's helmet though.

Ash wasn't sleeping well last night. Eventually I sent Kristi to the spare room and just held him until he dozed off, then carefully (over the course of half an hour), I transferred him to his cot and lay him down sleeping. Both mother and baby were sleeping peacefully when I went to work. When I got home I played with him and got him all laughing and giggly, then changed his nappy and gave him a bath. He was quite happy with that.

And hey, anything between those times is Kristi's responsibility.

[Alex]

So the details of the negotiated divorce agreement with the EU has been published. Not read it myself yet. It was interesting yesterday listening to a bunch of various junior politicians yesterday mostly saying they were against this agreement, didn't like what it said, blah, blah, blah. The journalist interviewing them then asked if they had actually seen a copy of the agreement and read it, to which they had to somewhat shamefacedly admit that they hadn't.

Still continued going on about what a bad deal it was though.

See, now that is the kind of thing that turns me against someone in a debate. I remember back before the Scottish independence referendum I initally had a good think about it and looking at my own personal circumstances I decided reluctantly that I would vote to remain as part in the UK, based on that I had around 8 years left in my job and I didn't want to mess up my pension. As I listened to the arguements of other people who were against independence I was very aware that a lot of what they were saying was wrong (for example that we wouldn't have rights to the North Sea oil fields as they'd be outside out national waters. Clearly they were unaware of the UN laws on off shore resources, and that oil companies would simply switch to operating from Norway (Norway has a very high tax system, wages are higher to compensate but it would mean increased operating costs for companies, not to mention the costs involved in switching operations to a new country and so on). Afterwards friends mentioned that it had been very interesting to watch me slowly change camps.

Not the only time I've seen where people supporting a cause would do much better if they just kept quiet and said nothing. Oh well, I'd love to write more but work is calling and needs must.

Hope you all have a wonderful day. Except for that underpants guy, I hope you have an even better than wonderful.  

[Alex]

Got in to work this morning to find half the senior bosses all sitting at spare terminals in my office.

I rarely consider close contact with anyone more than two ranks above me to be a good thing. They normally ask questions about stuff, and the answers lead to more questions that lead to bad places.

An example of this is back when I was a younger and slightly more fresh faced SAC(T) (Senior Aircraftsman (Technician)). I worked with a sergeant (Baldy) and a corporal (Scott Grieg), both of whom were out of the office this day, when our OC (officer commanding) walked in for a chat. We shot the breeze for a bit, and then him being fairly new in the job asked me if there were any problems and issues the bay was facing that he might be able to sort out and help with.

Well, I ran down a list of all the things that Baldy was juggling to keep our bay operating and supporting the flying program to the best that it could.

By the end of the list of issues, the boss was standing in front of our metal shelf's, repeatedly battering his head off the metal post. He never came in to ask what problems we had again, and on his return to work Baldy had a quiet chat with me about shielding officers from reality.

To this day, it remains some of the best advice I have ever been given, heh.

[Alex]

Introduced Russell to The Guild last night. Since he and Kristi sat up until 1am watching it, I'll assume he likes it. Alas that nasty thing called work meant that I'd to head to bed a bit before them.

Planning on a game of Pandemic tonight. Never played the basic game before, but the varient ones have been fun so hoping to enjoy it just as much.

Seem to have an upset stomach today. Not fun when you have a baby who is determined that he wants you to be holding him.