Jar jar

I must watch those Star Wars films again, it's been a while.

Mind you, there's a bunch of blurays that I've bought and not had chance to watch yet (cricket season dominates the telly) so it'll have to wait.

Today saw an Old Friend (actually two, one not so old) come back to work after far too long away. She's been struggling, which is highly understandable because a huge chunk of the foundation for her world has been kicked away.

Things happen to people. Really bad things. And quite often, we need a little help to recognise that it's not the end of the world. As long as we have some of that spark, there's a bit of help. And if we can't see that spark, someone we know will have a metaphorical match to help start it off again although it may not be obvious who that someone might be. There's always hope. Even if it's difficult to see it.

The closest I've come to losing hope is actually quite a few years ago (we won't talk about that) but it's been coming close again with the skin thing. It's tough that it's going one step forward, one step back, with the backward steps usually being my fault for losing discipline.

Relationships hit hard too, in the breaking of them. When my last major relationship broke up, I couldn't see it (and didn't want to show it) but I was utterly numb. I threw myself into the online gaming world and into work. I pursued two utterly doomed attempts at relationships and got incredibly frustrated when they didn't work out.

I was of course kidding myself that there was any chance - but the certain mindset at the time utterly ignored the impossibilities, both in the recognising that it was wasted effort and in the accepting of the inevitable failure. It just led me into a self destructive path which had me descend further into depression. Not entirely sure how I escaped from that - I can't remember.

Ok - that's it for my woes, for now at least.

I wanted to talk about a very special little lady who needs all the reminders she can get right now of how great she is.

I'm talking about the person who was the heart of my last team. She knew her little corner of the project perfectly, we could all trust that everything we sent their way would get done accurately and very timely. (And this is coming from a person who gives few chances and will bypass people when disappointed). It wasn't just the professional aspects though, it was the empathy, understanding and intelligence that kept people (everyone !) coming back for advice.

Yep. If there's one person who we could have happily kidnapped and brought with us when we shifted teams, it's this little lady.

Of course those awesome cakes help too.

So there we have it - we persuaded her to come visit my team today (I bribed her with jars !). She seemed a fragile 3 foot tall when she stepped on to our a floorplate and left an apparent 6 foot tall legend again.

One of the bad things about depression cycles is that it can lock away the ability to recognise the good things about yourself. That's when we need a little help from outside to recognise the value that we have. I hope we helped our little lady with that today, just like the cricket team helped me with it in the last game. I'll be back next year because of the lift they give me.

It helped me out as well today - my muscles have been complaining and it helps me to have a bit of mental fortitude to deal with that. Being able to talk through my issues properly is something I can't do with many people (what I put here is the tip of the iceberg). But being able to share the burden of issues that are actually quite similar help us both deal with them.

I'll leave it there :-)

Today was one of the better days.

PS I just checked - I have 8 more of those jars begging for some paint :-).

Calling for Plan B

First day of leave today

Yey !

Plan A was to chill out in front of the cricket, however the weather in Leeds intervened and there was no play at all today. What to do ... what to do ...

Partly inspired by needing to top up the supplies (ok, the cupboards were bare and I was down to my last packet of biscuits), Plan B was to head into Bristol centre for a wander around. Wandering the shops usually involves lurking in record shops for way too long and book shops until I get bored (which isn't too long seeing as the local book shops aren't great now).

Oh - did I mention I was on leave ? I needed a break and I'll be away from work until Monday 3rd. I'm hoping for some good R&R, although my legs are slightly torn up again. It's not serious, at least it's not nearly as serious as a month ago. They've just been objecting to one of my stress reactions, which hasn't been helping.

Back to the shopping. We have 2 reputable record shops in Bristol now (are there more ? tell me if there are!), Head and HMV. Ok, HMV have their own problems with customer disservice but they're what we have available as competition, which actually kept them honest, went bust in our recession. Head were the place I went in first, they're a bit cheaper. I wouldn't buy any blurays from them though as they sell discs that are exrental and marked "not for retail". Better not tell the law.

I ended up spending a bit of cash in Head, there was a favourable 3 for £10 offer plus I'm checking out soe Daft Punk. What did I get ?

3 for £10 was :
Bjork - Homogenic
Enigma - Le Roi Est Mort ...
R.E.M. - Automatic For The People
£1 - Jan Hammer - Best of Miami Vice
£5 - Daft Punk - Discovery

I've always enjoyed Bjork's not-quite-sane vocals and Enigma's atmospherics. I've managed to not have any R.E.M. for far too long. Jan Hammer's Miami Vice soundtracks were incredible moody instrumentals. And I enjoyed Daft Punk's soundtrack to Tron Legacy. Oh - Daft Punk were playing over the tannoy too, which probably saw me staying in that shop longer than I otherwise would have. But it gave me an excuse to make the check out girl giggle when I said, on her spotting the Daft Punk, that I'd been beaten into submission by the album playing over the tannoy.

Next door was Waterstones. I'm kinda surprised we still have bookstores. The online sellers blow them away on stock, value and offers. In the Mall, the Buy One Get One Half Price offer included the latest Jack Campbell but not David Brin. In the centre, it included the David Brin but not the Jack Campbell. I'd already ordered it off Amazon anyway.

Never read anything by David Brin. Always been interested, never bought the books.

Bit more wandering, bit more being disappointed by the prices in HMV. Since Virgin/Zavvi went bust, they've had no competition to encourage lower prices. Hunger saw me making a beeline for lunch. I'm getting to be a fan of Soho Coffee Co. Good coffee, edible food. And ... today ? Great music too. And I coulda sworn someone was checking me out from another table. Wishful thinking perhaps :-).

I have an app on my iPhone called Shazaam, which listens to what's playing and tells you what it is. I use it in two cases : "What the hell is this awful rubbish so I can avoid it ?" and "OMG This is awesome and I have to buy it". Well, the second of those today was by Caro Emerald playing in the coffee shop.

And ... HMV were asking too much so it got acquired as soon as I got home.

Before I close - Supermarket was done on the way home and ... who do I spot ? Superspy ! This was a fella who worked with us for far too many years before taking a well earned retirement. He worked in our registry section and would have done anything for anybody. Great guy. I was in the queue when I spotted him, so I couldn't chase him down and say hello.

Ah well.

On the whole, good day today. There was no play in the cricket but that spurred me to get those supplies. Being serious (for a change), I needed bread, apples and some other proper supplies. Can't rely on teacakes for breakfast while you're on leave ...

Looking forward to the next week.

Happy birthday CK :-)

It's CK's birthday very soon, so a bunch of the Crazies hit Preview Bar & Grill for lunch before heading off to do some bowling. It's the first Saturday of a school holiday time, so it was absolutely packed. The kind of packed where you're keeping as much of an eye on small people as you are on the pins ;-)

Being packed also means you're not so likely to get the balls you need, in our case CK, Bionicdwarf and me all like to have size 10 balls with large holes ... My hands aren't that big but I can't release a bowling ball properly unless the holes are right. I got my benchmark in both games by getting 116 in the first and 100 in the second. I use a size 10 ball because while I have the arm strength to use a 12, I'll not have much hope of keeping that going over a couple of games.

I don't bowl too often, so I'm usually relearning how to get the consistency going, so I'm quite happy with hitting my 100 benchmark this time. Even though in the second game, I needed a Spare and 9 to make the hundred ... Good start in that game but I had a period in the middle where I only got 2 pins down in a couple of frames. The problem in my shoulder doesn't affect 10 pin bowling, as the flaw there kicks in when my arm is pointing upwards. 10 pin bowling balls are a bit heavy for that and a cricket bowling action would get you evicted from a 10 pin alley due to scaring everyone with 100 yards :-)

Results :
Bionicdwarf coming out in front with a bit of Smirnoff Ice powered consistency
CK being 3rd in the first game and 2nd in the second
Me hitting my benchmarks but struggling for consistency
CQ doing her best but struggling due to poorly arm

Bowling's fun :-) And the waitress in Preview Bar & Grill was rather pretty too. However, I can see the time coming very soon where I need to hit the coffee again. There's another one of those bugs going round at work again, I have a feeling it may be my turn. Strong, milky coffee is great, because I make it strong enough to make my hair stand on end and smooth enough to ease a sore throat :-)