Alex's even longer post thread.

[Alex]

I saw an advert for a show where Charles Band interviews Rob Zombie and thought "Oh that could be interesting to listen to.!"

No. No, it wasn't. Didn't make it the whole way through before I decided to watch some cheesy vampire film instead. The weather is scorching hot right now, so I am watering the grass (ok, the sprinkler is watering the grass while I sit here, but I at least set it up and put it on). Oh yeah. Got to go hang out the laundry brb.

Laundry is done, dishes are done and the rest of the day is mine to do with as I wish. I love being retired. 

Nikki is off for her operation today. She's been terrified leading up to it. I've been listening to her, trying to help buck her, and so forth.  Hopefully, it all goes well for her.

[Alex]

Got attacked by a seagull today. Actually hit my head from behind, although I am pretty sure it came off worst. Went for a 3 hour hike along the beach with Mark the paranoid conspiracy theorist that I used to work beside. I can get on with him ok as long as he doesn't start talking about them.

The really sad thing is that some of the conspiracy theories he has said as things that me and some friends made up as jokes and posted on various right-wing forums. I haven't had the heart to tell him that. He really is so caught up in it all, I don't think he'd accept the truth if I did tell him. At first we tried to make the stories plausible but somewhere along the line we figured everything we said was being accepted and people just went wild with it.

Some folks just want to be fooled. As long as it fits with how they want the world to be, they don't care if it is right or not. Haven't looked on most of them for a while.

Anyway, we walked for 3 hours although at a much slower pace than I would normally do. I'd go as far as to say I'd have knocked half an hour to an hour of the walk if I'd went solo. He did say he'd injured his leg a bit. I'll be away next weekend, but we'll do another one in a few weeks and see how he does. The weather was cooler than expected (it was supposed to hit 32 Celcius, but thankfully it was nowhere near that or I'd have been melting). With it being overcast, the views weren't quite as spectacular as they normally would be.

I've been growing my hair long recently. Well, long compared to what it has been for the part 20 odd years. Noticed in the mirror that it is very grey right now. Being married has aged me horribly.  Maybe I should try dying it back to its natural colour, at least while I am applying for my new job? Hmm.

[Alex]

I was asked today why married men live longer than single ones. I answered that because women refuse to let them die early and escape punishment. I am sure you can guess the next question I was asked. The answer to that one was a shrug of my shoulders accompanied by a "Don't ask questions you are going to get p**sed off at the reply to then." I seem to be slightly out of step with the rest of the modern world in that I don't believe that other people being offended by something I do somehow means I then owe them something.

Took a walk down to a car boot sale that was just down the street from us. Wow was it busy. About halfway there, Ash realised he hadn't grabbed one of his baseball caps and got upset about it (if he is feeling overwhelmed we've noticed he'll pull the brim down so he sees less of the world. It is a handy little coping strategy. When he saw how unexpectedly busy it was, then he got really upset with that one.

Found out yesterday that I am getting awarded another medal. I chuckled at that one and informed them I'd already lost 2/3s of the one's they'd previously given me, hadn't bothered getting the last one put on my dress uniform and would most likely lose the new one. That got a shocked face in response.  I just can't bring myself to care about a cheap piece of metal. Either they are awarded for something fairly pointless, or they are awarded for something so significant that giving one of them is meaningless in comparison. Lost both your legs son? Here, have a nice shiny bit o' tin to make up for it. Rather be given a good pint instead myself. Only one of mine was presented in a formal ceremony. The rest it was pretty much someone passing dropped a box off on my desk. The ceremonial one I hated. Had to sit and listen to all sorts of speeches and wait while people who I thought were much more worthy of attention got theirs. I mean one guy had leapt from a rescue helicopter without a harness or any other safety equipment onto the side of a mountain to save a trapped climber (couldn't get to him any other way. I heard the audio of that one afterward and you could hear the pilot screaming orders at the winchman not to do it). Something like that is a lot more worthy of recognition. Maybe I should just put it all down alongside stuff like patriotism that I just don't get. My country right or wrong makes the same amount of sense to me as someone saying my ass green or purple, or my fish flying or fried. The random coincidence of having been born in one particular piece of ground rather than another does not strike me as a sound base for loyalty. Doing that for a cause you've decided to support, that I can get with and understand.

In all my years of service, I've never seen a flag stop a bullet. Dying for something that is incapable of returning the devotion seems a bit silly to me. Give me someone I can put my faith in, even a fight I believe in sure. Pay me well enough and yup, I am your man (don't like the idea of switching sides just because someone else pays you more though. If you make a commitment, then see it through). Tell me it is my civic duty and I'll laugh. Don't give me a proper pay raise for 15 years and I'll walk away. I did hear through the grapevine, command is sending someone up to Lossiemouth to speak to the Techies and find out why they are all leaving. 1) You are sending them away too much. 2) You aren't paying them enough.

Could easily save them a plane trip right there.

Besides, if you can't find people worth fighting for, the chances are that your cause or ideal isn't really worth it.

Father's Day in the UK today. Ash rather excitedly presented me with a couple of cards, a handmade one, and a new dice box that we've been decorating with stickers.

[chefzombie]

i got into a rip roaring " debate' on facebook today when i told my friend otherbarrie that i wasn't going to change how i type " happy fathers day" just to satisfy her inner spelling nazi. i explained that i hade 2 wonderful fathers, and i have many of the in my life, so i see no reason why i can't type that happy day wish in the multiple form.
   she is probably correct, but she still lost the battle in a resounding manner when all of the other bar(r-i-e)s jumped in and agreed with me, and so did the majority of her flight attendant friends. the death blow was when her daughter backed me, lol! she got mad and deleted most of the discussion. she'll get over it.

[Alex]

I remember a friend telling me I was spelling whiskey wrong and shutting her up by pointing out that officially either spelling is acceptable. She did make herself look rather foolish though by jumping in on a conversation that was nothing to do with her and getting told to wind her neck in by everyone else involved.

There are sometimes when I'll pull people up over spelling, although most of the time I am more likely to have a laugh about it especially if the mistake changes the meaning of the word and what the whole sentence means.

Jumped through another couple of hoops tonight for the job I am after. I am starting to feel like they are deliberately seeing how much they can irritate me to see how much I really want the job. Hah, jokes on you, because I just want a job. Doesn't have to be this one. It is incredibly handy for a number of reasons if I do get it and I am mostly going for it simply because it makes life a lot more, well not more, it makes it exactly as convenient as it is currently. The other options all involve problems to some degree and this is a job I know I can do. Hell, I have literally done it with my eyes closed before.

A sub taking rich tourists down to see the wreck of the Titanic has gone missing. £250,000 a ticket. Hopefully they will be found safe and well, but more importantly, I hope that no one involved in any rescue attempts comes to any harm.

Listening to one of John Carpenter's albums of music for movies, only without the movies. One of them gets my heart racing when I listen to it. If only that one was in a film. Put it in low and subtle then let it have that effect on me during a suspenseful scene. Ah to see a film that scares me again.

[Alex]

Kristi was out working tonight, so it was just me and Ash. I gave him his meds and tucked him in. Then I went to join in tonights online D&D game. A couple of hours pass and we take a break so I go to check on Ash. He isn't in his bed, which surprised me as the melatonin normally zonks him out. I went to check and see if he'd went into our room, no sign of him there either. I start checking the rest of the rooms and nothing. At this point I am starting to think do I phone Kristi at work first, or the police. Wasn't panicking yet. Checked the rooms again, looking in places that I hadn't checked last time, over the far side of the bed, in the wardrobe, then I noticed the curtain over at Kristi's chest of drawers looked a bit odd, so I lifted that, and there we were, Ash was fast asleep on top of it.



This was him the previous night. Both times he had been put in his bed.

[Alex]

Last night's D&D gave me a good laugh. We have a cleric in the group who is a rather stuffed shirt type. We'd interrupted a robbery late at night in a local temple (that happened to belong to the same player's god). We fought some people outside, went in through the open door and fought a big boss guy. After we'd killed him, the cleric wanted to take the body out of the temple. The rest of the party told him "You want it out, you take it out". Anyway, he dragged the body outside and walked straight into a patrol of the town watch. As he was explaining the situation the sergeant at arms asked him if he had anyone who could back up his story.

At this point in the game, myself and the rest of the party listening in from in the temple all decided to vanish in a variety of ways. Our cleric is now trying to explain to a judge that he is one of the highest-ranking members of his church and not a murder hobo. The guard demanded that he put the body back where he found it, but instead, he used a spell called Shape Rock to basically bury the body in the street. Ironically the body is one of the few things that could prove his innocence (if you've seen the movie, he could have cast Speak With Dead). The party is currently pretending not to know him and he has 24 hours to prove his innocence. The rest of the party are drinking in the pub and having a chuckle at his desperate attempts to prove who he is while just getting himself deeper and deeper in trouble.

At one point the DM had to call a 5-minute break while she had a laughing fit.

[Alex]

I managed to get the original copy of the will that I need to progress dealing with it all.

Seriously, you'd think they'd make this whole process a lot simpler instead of giving contradictory instructions. I couldn't get to the sheriff court though and I need to head back to Lossiemouth tomorrow. It is Ash's last week at nursery and they are having a graduation ceremony. I've invited my mum and sister up for that, then they'll come back home and I'll travel back down with them to get the will confirmed.

Damn hot weather, but very overcast. It could do with a good thunderstorm to clear the air and cool it down. The train will hopefully have working air con tomorrow, or it is going to be a long, hot and uncomfortable journey. Got plenty of drinks in advance.

[Alex]

Turns out that my younger brother had picked up some minor brain damage from his long bout with covid.

Still idiots out there who think it wasn't a thing though.

Managed to get a train going all the way from Glasgow to Elgin. For some reason, it only runs on Sundays. The air conditioning was working which was a good thing. Ash has wanted me to play with him more than he usually does over the past few days. He even asked me to get down on the floor and play with him, but whatever he wanted us to do was interrupted by my mum and I never managed to get him back on track. He went off to play with something else.

[Alex]

Kristi had the joy of a 7-hour Teams meeting today. I'd have put a photo of my smiling face in front of the camera and pretended to attend myself.

I may have done things like that in the past where I felt my attendance wasn't needed at online conferences.  Never got caught out (which just proves my point).

Took the family into Elgin while Kristi was busy. Went to go for breakfast and the first 4 places we went to try were all closed for different reasons before we finally got somewhere.

[Alex]

When I was a kid my mum would ask me to rent a video from the local shop. I'd put it on, she'd phone a friend and then talk on it for the first hour of the film.

Then she'd ask what had been happening.

Kristi is a little different. She'll choose a movie (generally something I don't want to see), and then walk out the room and not come back. I guess that is an improvement from when we first met and she'd put on something I'd absolutely hate, then fall asleep lying on top of me preventing me from escaping.

Is this a common sort of thing among women?

[Alex]

Into the last few days of belonging to the military. Come next week I formally become the free man I've been living as for the past few months.

I still don't feel anything about that. You'd think there would be something. Regret, fear, optimism... Nope. It has settled just into being another day.

I've made an appointment for Tuesday to speak to the sheriff's court clerk. Let's hope that this time we get the will finally settled. Go down one day, do the appointment the next and back home the day after.

[ER]

When I was a kid my mum would ask me to rent a video from the local shop. I'd put it on, she'd phone a friend and then talk on it for the first hour of the film.

Then she'd ask what had been happening.

Kristi is a little different. She'll choose a movie (generally something I don't want to see), and then walk out the room and not come back. I guess that is an improvement from when we first met and she'd put on something I'd absolutely hate, then fall asleep lying on top of me preventing me from escaping.

Is this a common sort of thing among women?

I don't think so...? My roommate in college was into movies on a level to match any of you guys here, though more as a viewer than into how movies were made or knowing about the figures who made them, but her thing was she'd narrate through half the movie telling me to get ready because the next thing that'd happen was a doozy, or could I believe that happens, or telling me about what an actor did in another movie. She didn't believe in a quiet movie experience but it was just her way and didn't much bother me.

[Alex]

So today I went down to East Beach and picked Ash up from nursery. We took a walk to the beach where he ran around the dunes a bit and threw some sticks back in the river. Then we got some ice creams, which we ate while sitting watching the harbour. On the walk home I took him to a few play parks and let him walk along all the walls he wanted to (all of them).

It is the last time I'll ever be able to do that with him. Oh sure, we'll go to those places in the future and do those things again, but none of them will ever be on the way home from nursery ever again. One stage of his childhood over and a few weeks break before the next one begins.

I guess we are just having all sorts of life-changing events this year.

[Alex]

When I was a kid I remember complaining to my mum about having to do prayers at school and having to attend religious services. She told me that when I was older I would understand why it is important.

Well, it is 40 years later and now in the same position as she was back then you know what? I still don't get why it should be so important. When it comes Ash's time for those, it will be his choice, not mine, Kristi's or some random politician or judge who tries to enforce their beliefs on everyone else.

Dropped him off for his last day at nursery. As per usual, he was fine until the time came to say bye and then he became all clingy. I really wish I'd been given enough space to get him happy about going, or at least accepting of having to go. Well, at least I have a head start on him with his school.

Well the little ceremony is all done. The kids sang a few songs, did some dancing and then got a gift bag. Ash gave each of his teachers (eight of them and toys for the two dogs). One of the teachers asked if she could add Kristi on facebook so she could keep in touch with Ash's progress. After that we went out for lunch before heading into Elgin. Mum hadn't been to Lilly-Beth's grave since before lockdown and wanted to lay some flowers down. Kristi needed to get some new shoes. She couldn't find a size that fitted and the saleman tried to sell her a pair a size smaller. She wasn't impressed to say the least. I think f**king idiot was the term she used. This is someone who doesn't normally swear.