The Great North Jog.

I took the pecuniary plunge today and finally-yes, on the last day for entries-paid for my place on the "Great North Run", and if I've sacrificed £38 for the privilege, I'm sure as hell going to run on the day! Even if I have to walk! Does that make sense? Anyways, I jogged my "4.2" on Saturday, and I still feel like I've been beaten up by a gang of bouncers whose Mothers were beaten up by joggers (who looked like me). So I've got this plan, not this plan, to jog twice a week, to do a short jog and a long jog: probably build up the second weekly jog to about 7.5 miles by the end of April. Hope springs eternal. I'll report back! And then it gets interesting: I think I should jog at least 3 or 4 times a week after that. Wow, I'll be a real jogger! Or is it runner? I can't understand why we British are slowly forsaking that wonderful lazy word: to "jog" seems so much less demanding than to "run". That's why I jog! There's a good car sticker idea: "Jog, Don't run". These are the practice routes: my friend Paul has his own routes worked out around where he lives -he's definitely a runner by the way. I think I'll be holding him back come the big day...

Porridge...

Last night Bex asked Joni whether she wanted some porridge, as she normally does before putting her to bed, and as Joni was in a bad mood she said "no!", so then Bex said "Right Joni, bed time, come and get your pyjamas on..." to which Joni replied, after a thoughtful pause, "where's porridge?" -just one example of how Joni seems to be really picking up on a lot of things these past few weeks!

B&W Joni...

A friend of ours took some medium format pictures of Joni in December on our allotment, she scanned in two and mailed them to us today, I've put them up below: click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Placed!

I went for a placement interview today at James Cook University Hospital and was phoned this evening and told I had the job! I'm in two minds about this success really: ideally I wanted a placement with a computing company (e.g. Serco) but realistically I suppose there aren't that many computing companies in the locality, and I need to stay in the locality (I want to, I love where I live!), so perhaps (looking forward) getting some experience of database maintenance/ website development in a non-computing company is more relevant to the local jobs "market". The placement within the spinal injury clinic of the hospital (the largest hospital in Europe- 26 Miles of corridors!) begins in July and (as far as I can tell) involves doing the above in a very confined space-an office the size of a cupboard! Well, almost. It's not as bad as my cupboard "office" at home. I don't think my programming knowledge will be fully utilized, but those are the breaks: it will be nice to have a "rest" from the hard stuff in a way. And who wants to be doing the hard stuff for 10K anyway?

It's funny, because when I left my job in the civil service, I did it in order to go to University, but I had intended to study to become a nurse. Strange how I'll actually end up where I thought I'd end up, just in a different role!

The Ultimate Crime...

Finished reading "In Cold Blood" last night and, coincidentally, watched "12 Angry men" last night too. Both film and book deal with mans right to (through some judicial process or other) deal out death to those "deserving" it- do murderers deserve to be murdered? Is a "life for a life" as easy to apply as it is to say- and is it just? It is, if you consider "justice" to be weighing someone against his crime on a pair of black and white scales.

Actually, the film deals with the likelihood of a mans/men knowing with enough certainty the "truth" of a case, with enough certainty to be able to (themselves or through others) take someone's life, whereas the book deals with the right of men to apply the death penalty even when no reasonable doubt exists as to the guilt of the accused. The title, "In Cold Blood" at the beginning of the book, right up until the end actually, seems to be referring to the crime of the accused: then suddenly, you realize it also if not wholly, refers to the crime of the state, of the judge and jury who carry out the ultimate crime on the criminals themselves.

It's a tough nut to crack, but to me, I think only God can rightly end life, just as only God can create it. Man only "passes on" what God originated, and whether Man can act for God (in his absence?) has always been debated, but personally I think that those who have presumed that man CAN act for his Creator have caused more harm than good in this world. Not that I'm attributing any blame to those who have judged/governed in his stead- someone has to!- for if God wished otherwise, some may say, then why does not he tell us otherwise, or do otherwise than (apparently) nothing himself?

The acid test...

Those who know me well will tell you that I'm not the complaining type, I'm the really complaining type. Yes, I always seem to have something wrong with me, or at least that's the impression I seem to give to others (so I'm told). To be honest, I'm generally fit and healthy, but I've stopped jogging these past few weeks due to having a cold, and I do feel the (bad) effects of that. Moreover, I have a killer sore throat, the sort that stops you eating toast for breakfast (what else is there?), and last night I had such a bad attack of acid: I say "attack" because it felt like what I imagine a heart attack must feel like, only I suppose a heart attack must feel much worse. I must admit though, I came close to calling the doctor: I had to stand up straight (I couldn't go to bed, lying down makes it worse), in front of the fire, till quarter to One in the morning. Painfully boring. I took a tablet for it, which has the side effect of making me dizzy, but I couldn't avoid taking one last night. Anyways I'm going to see a consultant at the Hospital about it, it's been going on too long. As regards jogging...I now have a good reason to start up again, and a great challenge ahead of me that will test my mettle: I've managed, along with Paul, to land a place on the "Great North Run". Crap.

On a roll...

I received feedback and grading on the Formal Methods 2 assignment that I did last semester and was chuffed (it's probably the hardest asignment I've done) to receive an "A". All the hard work pays off...sometimes. And today, I managed to crack a problem that I just couldn't get my head around yesterday: writing a little "C" program to accept a number base from a user (between 1 and 32), which then converts any number given in that base, e.g. binary (2), into the related denary (base 10) value, the sort we humans understand the best. So you would get back 22 for the input 2, followed by the input 10110. The problem was, we weren't allowed to use standard C library functions, so I had to devise a way to do this without using ATOI etc, anyhoo, it's a really silly program that I've put it here *link removed 8/2006* (run the .exe or change the extension on the .c file to .txt to have a look at the code), maybe I'll look back at it and laugh. Or more likely look back at it and wonder what the hell it's all about....Now we have to work out how to "plug it in" to the bigger "popit" system.....

Jacking it in...

I'd love to irresponsibly "drop everything" and devote my time to working out the meaning of life, to working out which (if any) religious course I should take. This seems so important, it seems worth stopping everything else for, until I've sorted it. This could be never of course, in which case I would be pondering these things till I die, but on a full time basis. This isn't practical- I've been given a physical body, and needs that involve having a family, and keeping that family sustained and clothed and housed- so if I'm to balance these things, I've got to do the "working out" bit part-time. That just doesn't seem right to me. Did God give us all these "other things" to worry about so that we wouldn't spend all our time pondering the big questions, as did the Greeks, who had slaves to do the "less important" stuff? That's what's needed: somebody to do my work for me, and cook my meals, and clean my house, so that I can do the brain work. It's not going to happen. So I'm doomed to trying to find the "path" in my spare time, and who wants to spend their spare time doing that when they're so tired from doing all the other things...Jesus told us not to worry about these things, and not even to carry a food pouch as we go forth preaching: that's the right idea- God, or at least one of his creatures, will look after us- and yet, he also says later that his disciples should carry a food pouch (don't rely on others after all) and Paul says that if a man doesn't want to work, "neither should he eat". What's the answer? I think the latter concession that Jesus made reveals the truth: you have to put the bread on the table yourself, as the Christian would say, "you have to give God the works to bless". Where does the welfare state fit in with all of this? I suppose I AM being paid to advance my knowledge for my own benefit at the moment, but if only there was a course in discovering the meaning of life (and I don't mean the Alpha course). I suppose I'm trying to say that I don't want to be lying on my death bed thinking back over my life as a computer programmer, or as an anything: I want to think "I got to the bottom of it", and to be at peace. The thing I lack, the thing most people lack, is the time to do it.

Back into the Swing...

...of University this past week, semester two of the Second year. At least two of the modules seem very daunting, "Data Structures" and particularly the "Group Project", which involves a lot of programming, for instance building a compiler from scratch?! for the "popit" markup language. I've put the specs here *link removed - who really wants to see this stuff? ;-) 8/2006* . Pete, Alec and Patrick are in our group, so looks like Pete and myself will be busy...

Brian's learning to drive at the moment, last night was a night that's been a long time coming, but enjoyable once it had come (like that proverbial tree of life) as he drove Paul and me up to the Lion Inn, to watch us sup Old Peculiar on draught whilst he drank water. Which made the beer taste that much sweeter. The number of times I've driven Brian to pubs and had to watch him drink...well those days are gone, let's hope he passes his test soon (his test (first test?) is next Month).

A strange thought came to me whilst drinking with Bri and Paul last night, perhaps it was O.P. inspired, but we were talking about some event that had happened years before, and I came out with a typically pretentious statement (I don't mean to be), "where is that event now? In our minds? So what's the difference between that event and one that I've just imagined, one that didn't happen?" Paul said something along the lines of it DID happen, and I asked him to prove it. Well, I suppose we all REMEMBERED it, so there's the proof. What about the things that happen to us in private though? Or when your friends around you die, how can you say or prove a thing happened when you've no way of checking your memory? And when YOU die, who can say what happened to you at all, what happened in your life, or that you even lived at all, especially say a hundred years down the line when "the remembrance of you has been forgotten" as the wise man said? I suppose what I was really getting at was the old "each day becomes a box for a person you leave behind" statement I made in an earlier blog, as nothing other than the day you're living in seems to me to be "real" at all, or any more real than anything else contained in your brain.

Paul mentioned that Hilda Monahan died last week, she "had a good innings though". I hate that statement. Nobody has a good innings, because you don't go off and have tea after your innings, you go off into eternal non-existence (I hope not but there you go) and compared to that, no innings is a good innings. In fact the sum total of all the innings ever had is no innings at all compared to eternity: this reminds me of a silly line from In Cold Blood which I'm enjoying reading at the moment, where a bird is said to carry a grain of sand at a time across the ocean until all the sand from all the beaches has been carried: this would just be the very beginning of eternity. Life is not cricket.

Latter day Sinners...

On the way to a lecture today I was approached by a gentleman, dressed all in black, who wanted to share with me a message of hope (this is what he said). I saw from his badge (actually I guessed by the fact that he HAD a badge on) that he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or a Mormon. I couldn't honestly let him go through his sermon, without pointing out straight away that I used to (also) be a full time minister, doing the sort of thing he was doing now, for several years, but as a Jehovah's Witness. I told him I respected what he was doing, but asked him whether he thought religion put up fences between people? He said religion can have a positive affect on someone's life, and I agreed, but I said the positive effects are limited to a relatively small group of people who consider themself saved (or "Saints"), isn't that so? I said that I just didn't think that this is what Jesus had in mind, that this is the conclusion that I had come to after preaching for years myself. I asked him whether he thought it was true that his religion might unite him into a group with some people but set him up as opposing the "others", I suppose the "Sinners" to his "Saints" (though I didn't say this). He actually agreed, but then asked me whether he could call round to my house to talk some more about how his religion could help me! I remember having this sort of conversation with a few reasonable people in my time as a "minister", or very similar conversations, and I believe my response was identical: agreeing with the persons statement (e.g. "there's good people in all religions") but not letting the implications of that ever sink in (i.e. "these good people are going to die according to your belief that only Witnesses have a realistic chance of being saved, so how can you agree with this person that they are good?"), in effect, agreeing with them in order to become "all things to all people" so that I might by all means convert them, to paraphrase Paul. In effect, being a liar.

I left the guy on good terms, and mentioned the conversation to Brian. I said that I had got him to agree to the divisive nature of religion, of the one true religion against all the others (which is the religion you happen to be in, coincidentally), and how this wasn't "Christianity" to me. I said to Bri that thinking back, and comparing what WE said on the "doors" to people, honestly comparing that to what Jesus said to people in his preaching: well there's no comparison. Jesus was selling the Kingdom, we were selling an organization, or even worse, an organizations publications. Jesus invited people to follow HIM, we invited people to follow a particular version of Christianity, a modified version (with lots of extra rules and regulations): that in effect was asking people to follow men, the men of Brooklyn (HQ) in New-York. I would have laughed if someone had suggested that to me then, but it's true, and very clearly true to anyone who really sits and thinks about what Jesus preached, what he expected from his disciples, and what the Witnesses (or Mormons) teach and expect from theirs. Yes, from theirs.

Photo's...

Looking at those photo's below really makes me wish we were back on holiday, back in the lakes, with nothing to do but whatever we wanted. Looking at the photo's of England's deepest (darkest) lake, Wastwater, with the grey road running its grey length: looking at the sun on the hills at Wastwaters' end, the hills which become Scafell pike, England's highest mountain: looking at my little girl trying (with a little success) to "swim" across to her mummy to give her a kiss, remembering how scared she was on the first few days, how she wouldn't even go in the water and then how she was on the last few days, when she would literally scream with excitement when in the pool, when she even pushed herself off the side of the pool into the water herself (saying to Becky "go!go away!" as is her recent naughty wont): memories are part of what makes photo's so special to those that took them I suppose, as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words: perhaps that would be a good idea for a new digital camera (maybe they exist), a camera that allows you to record some audio with a photo (which is embedded into the digital photo itself, into the exif data) to prevent those words fading with time? Maybe that photo that speaks a thousand words today will only speak a hundred in ten years time. And we've all seen those old photo's, a hundred years old, that speak no words, the ones that only make us think: Who were they? Where are they? So here's some more for me to remember the holiday by, and the top one's from today, a snowdrop (is it?) in Saltburn.

Old Dog, has learned new tricks, seeks placement...

I haven't been selected for interview for the Corus/Dupont/James Cook Hospital jobs. Do employers expect, that is do they like, or even require (in an unwritten rule kind of way) their placements to be the (typical and average) young, just done his A-levels type o' guy? So I have an extra ten years under my belt-so what! Where's the equal opportunity legislation stand in all of this? Anyways, I'm feeling slightly deflated, and I'm wondering whether all my hard work is perhaps going to be in vain, seeing as this old dog is up against all these young, albeit less qualified, pups.

It's a galling coincidence that yesterday I received my HND certificate, and certificates of citation for achieving the best HND in the school last year. Perhaps I'll add copies of these to my CV? Nah. Maybe I'll change the D.O.B. section, that should give me a better chance.

Holiday's over...

We had a great holiday in the lakes, with amazing weather for the time of year- almost spring-like- and the house was lovely, as was the health club (which the holiday came with complimentary membership to), and the company-Rachel, Paul and Abi-and everything else. The only bad thing was Joni and me getting a sickness bug for a couple of days, also our bed was a bit soft, and too small for three (as Joni proved conclusively by refusing to sleep in her travel cot night after night!)

We had a great walk on the Saturday, and on the Thursday, of the week. On the Saturday we walked directly "up" from Elterwater, where we stayed, to the top of the chain of hills that form the Langdale pikes, and enjoyed spectacular views over Langdale and down the other side into Grasmere- you could see four lakes from the top. The walk was steep and demanding, especially for me, as I had Joni on my back! Worth it though. On Thursday we walked a beautiful footpath along Langdale which ended nicely in the well visited and old favourite pub, the New Dungeon Ghyll.

It was great relax and think of nothing holiday, it was a bring a book but don't read a page holiday, it was a kick back in front of an open fire and drink mulled wine holiday, or else walk the 10 minutes to the health club and sit in the sauna/steam room/jacuzzi, holiday!

If I had one thought of a religious/serious nature, it was this (fitting, in such beautiful surroundings):

God, Father, I don't want your presents, I want YOU.

Often it's been said that a child needs its parents company to be happy, and that nothing can make up for this. I've heard it spoken from religious platforms, and read from religious publications, criticism of parents who spend little time with their children, perhaps working long hours, who buy presents for their children as if this can substitute for their love, or show their love in place of themselves. These same publications and speakers have pointed to, as examples of Gods love, his "presents", or Creation. Where is our Father though? Many religious people would say he's only a prayer away, or he's only a book away, but if all we have are presents- a book is a present, the ability to pray is a present too perhaps- God is not in the presents. It's a horrible comparison to make, but in such a muddled world, the comparison is there to be made. I sincerely hope that God clears his name, as Jesus prayed, that it be sanctified, but to do this he must (as the Bible says) reveal himself. Please God, reveal yourself to ALL in an unambiguous way, if that is your will.

Here's some photo's of a beautiful place, and some beautiful people.