Introducing two new additions to the Darlington household…

Bob:

And Cornelius Maximus Wilmington the 4th:

Blame B for the names!

This year has seen a lot of changes for me already and another one is in the process of happening right now. A few weeks ago I resigned from my job and in a few more weeks I will be starting a new one.

I don’t change jobs every year like some people I know, in fact this is the first time for exactly five years. There are a lot of parallels too. I resigned from SAIC on the 14th July 2001 and started at Anvil on the Tuesday after the August bank holiday. Similarly, I handed in my notice on the 14th July 2006 and will start at Aleri on the day after the bank holiday. They are also both small software companies that specialise in products for investment banks. I will even have pretty much the same job title.

What does a two year old mince pie and an ewok have in common? The answer, it turns out, is “wedding cake.”

Huh?

Let me explain.

Wedding cakes have a bit of a history for us. Americans tend not to be very keen on the traditional British fruit cake, which was a bit of a problem since I got married to a Californian in New York! Even the hotel concierge could only track down a fruit flan which is not what I’d call traditional. In the end we had to make do with less conventional but still delicious “normal” deserts.

This last weekend we hosted our wedding reception. Actually, it’s probably our second or third depending on how you count it. But we’re not keeping track as we fully intend to celebrate for as long as we can get away with it…

Rather than book a hall and get people to sit next to almost total strangers for a couple of hours, we decided to hire a boat and cruise down the Thames for a few hours. In the end thirty-two guests turned up in the rain to help us celebrate. We sailed west towards Westminster, then east as far as Greenwhich and back to Temple.

A friend recently pledged to post to her blog at least once a day. It’s quite a target; does that much really happen in our lives to post anything insightful that frequently?

In my case the answer is “no.” I’m not nearly interesting enough, but A is doing a fine job so far as long as you don’t mind that it’s an average rather than actually a daily occurrence! That’s not to say that nothing interesting ever happens to me. Take this, for example. It happened shortly after I moved to London.

I’m upstairs in bed. Just having a lazy Sunday morning, there’s no rush to get up but I do feel the need for some liquid refreshment. An English man and his tea. But, then again, just lying here is so very relaxing.

B points out that the tea isn’t just going to make itself. I note that this isn’t entirely true. According to quantum theory, it is possible for elementary particles to be at opposite ends of the universe from one moment to the next. One can, therefore, conclude that, while unlikely, it is within the realms of possibility that a mug of steaming, hot tea could materialise out of no-where onto my bed-side table.

I’m not sure how true it is, but I always assume that doctors must have no fun at parties. Every time they’re introduced to someone the response is bound to be, “Oh, I have this strange tingle on my elbow…?” or “I have this pain in all the diodes on my left side.” Even lacking the title, working in IT as I do, I get the same kind of thing. “My PC blue-screens when…” or “How do I do [something esoteric] in [some weird application I’ve never heard of]?” It’s the curse of knowing something about computers.

We had a power-cut last night. Pretty much the only electronic thing that worked in the flat was my iBook G3, a 2001-era 600Mhz model with a DVD-reader and no disc writing ability. After sending a few emails I closed the lid, putting it to sleep.

Ironically, this morning it was pretty much the only gadget in my flat that wasn’t working. I opened the lid and found the Spinning Beach-ball of Death. Perhaps because of its age this is not unusual. What was unusual was that after a few seconds it stopped spinning. On restarting rather than a nice, grey Apple logo I found a Finder icon and a question mark flashing on the screen. Not good.

Some people seem to think that I visit new places just so that I can increment my Country Count. I guess going to three countries in one weekend a couple of years ago doesn’t do much to dispel that accusation, but it’s not true. What can I say? I like to see new places.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Having said that, hopefully I’ll hit my thirtieth country this year!

The movie starts at the end, with a death that the blurb proudly describes as “one of the most violent murders ever portrayed on celluloid” and then works backwards detailing the motivations for it and the complex relationships between the various characters.