Meeks Family

I Came, I Saw, I Stuck Around.

Time is a precious commodity, especially when you have kids. Let me quantify that a little better. I love spending time with my kids, but once they go to bed, it’s time for my wife and I to have some time for ourselves. The smaller kids generally go to bed around 7:30pm on a school night, although sleeping is often something that is far from their minds.

The kids usually get up about 6:30am, but sometimes, the klaxon call of Dad is not enough. If I can get them up, dressed and finished their breakfast by 7am, I’m pretty much on track. During the winter, it’s snow pants and boots on at 7:30am. Hats, mitts and coats on at 8:00am and then out of the door at 8:10am. Now that may sound like military precision, but it’s a system that works great and so far we have never been late for school.

I usually get home from work at 5:30pm, after having picked up Adam at school on the way. Sherri gets home a little after me, as she takes the bus to and from work, downtown. So once homework, dinner, and preparation for the following day is done, there’s usually not much time left, before it’s time for the kids to go to bed. As you can imagine, once they are finally in bed, it’s time to exhale and relax.

With this experiment to blog every day, I’ve come to realise that in the evenings I am knackered. Writing a blog takes a reasonable amount of energy, so I’ve come up with a plan.

With my birthday over and the last of my beers finished (or they will be this weekend), it’s time to cleanse the temple that I call my body. I’ve pretty much been lax since Christmas time, having beer and various other things that aren’t conducive to keep a svelte, trim body. So as of Monday morning, all of that is out of the window.

I’m also going to try to adjust my sleeping pattern. I’m fortunate that I only need about 5-6 hours sleep a night, with a well earned lie in, thoroughly looked forward too on Sundays. Sherri on the other hand could really use 8-9 hours sleep, though try telling her to go to bed at 10pm, is another thing. So what I’m going to try to do, is go to bed at 10am and then try to get up about 4:30am. This means that Sherri will have a good sleep and I will be able to write for a couple of hours in the morning, before the kids get up.

It will be interesting to see how quickly it takes my body to acclimatise, but I don’t imagine it will take too long. Hopefully this will help me to become much more productive and prevent me from being absorbed into the couch at night. Time will tell.

Well if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s not to leave writing a blog post till the end of the day. I did actually remember, a little before midnight, but unfortunately I was in bed. I did try to post using my iPod Touch, but something on the blog wasn’t configured right and I just couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed. Oh well at least I’m back and raring to go. Well maybe after a nice sleep.

I don’t think anyone will argue with me, that men and women are different. Now I obviously don’t mean physically. People say that the UK and US are two nations divided by a common language, well I’d probably say that the same can be said for Men and Women.

Take shopping. Now my wife sometimes gives me a list of things to pick up at the grocery store on the way home from work, as I’m the one that drives to work. So I’ll get a list that looks something like this:

• Shredded Cheese
• Pasta
• Hot Dogs

Now I’m am but a poor, weak minded man, but to me that list tells me I need to get cheese, spaghetti and hot dogs. To my wife though that could mean low fat, four cheese, shredded cheese, wholewheat linguine pasta and chicken hot dogs. If I were telepathic, shopping wouldn’t be a problem, but whoa is me, for getting tex mex cheese, or beef hotdogs.

And while we are on the subject of shopping. Men go shopping, because they have a need. “I need a new pair of jeans”, say I. I go to the store, find a pair I can live with, find the right size and then pay. For women, the process of buying a pair of jeans can mean trying on loads of pairs, going to multiple stores, to only then realise that the first pair they tried on, at the shop that is now 10 miles away is the pair they want.

I’m not writing this to knock the fairer sex, far from it, but I think it’s important for women to know how our minds work. OK, so I don’t want to give all the secret away but we are but simple folk.

And don’t get me on the subject of the toilet seat. I am now 43 and have been leaving the seat up as long as I can remember. It’s not that I try to leave it up, to antagonise the missus, I think that once the old fella is back in his safe confines, my brain thinks of the task at hand, as done. But the argument of, it’s easy to sit down and not realise the seat is up, is quite frankly a load of cobblers. It’s not something I’ve ever done. If I want to sit down on the throne, I make sure it is ready for me, I don’t just slam my backside down, with careless abandon.

Anyway I think I’ve said too much. Must quickly snuggle up to the wife, while I still can. She won’t read this until at least tomorrow.

I’ve been very fortunate to travel the world and have many great experiences. One of these is having the opportunity to try many different foods. Now apart from the odd, truly amazing meal, it’s the foods that some people would consider strange, that stick in the mind most.

Now I can’t remember exactly where most of these foods were tried, but I’ll do my best, to at least remember the city and country.

Alligator – New York City, US
Was at a Cajun restaurant. Tasty a bit like tough chicken.

Cod’s Cheeks – Nova Scotia, Canada
My Mother in law cooked this. I love fish, but am not in a hurry to try again.

Dog – Hong Kong
Just a taster off someone elses plate. Kind of ordinary.

Eels – London, UK
Jellied or stewed, absolutely lovely. Staple dish in London.

Frogs Legs – Bologne, France
Yes another thing that tastes like chicken. The look is worse than the taste.

Kangaroo – London, UK
At a French restaurant in London. Fairly tough, but very flavorful.

Morton Bay Bugs – Brisbane, Australia
The name is worse than the food. Kind of like mini lobsters. Very delicious.

Moose – Nova Scotia, Canada
Cooked by my father in law. Very gamey.

Ostrich – London UK
At the same restaurant I had kangaroo. Don’t really remember the taste too much, but it can’t have been bad.

Oysters – London, UK
I’d had tinned oysters before, but the first time I had Oysters Rockerfeller, was in a restaurant in Charlotte Street with my cousin Dennis. Served raw, was kind of like eating snot. I kid you not.

Shark – ?
Can’t for the life of me remember where I had this, but was nice as far as I remember.

Snails – Bologne, France
Most memorable was in a small café in Bologne.
So qSwordfish – New York, US
Restaurant in New York City. Full flavor and very tasty.

Quite a diverse range of foods. I’m sure I’ve missed some out, but think there’s some interesting ones there.

One thing I’ve never been into is decorating. Growing up and watching my Dad attempt stuff around the house, convinced me that it just wasn’t for me. I think the main problem is I’m just not good with my hands, well for most things anyway.

Even though I have a great disdain for decorating, I can’t help but think it’s very akin to website design. Or more specifically, changing the look of an existing site. Everything always seems to take an age. It’s the typical thing, when doing stuff for work, everything is a breeze, when it’s your own stuff it’s a different story.

Anyone who’s a regular visitor to this site, will have seen the changes over the years. For the last year the site however has been in a kinds of limbo. Towards the end of last year, I finally managed to move everything over to my own Wordpress site, but I just can’t seem to find a design for the site I love. I’ve also yet to find a way to get the photo gallery to function the way it should.

So yes, the design at the moment is funky. Somethings don’t work and somethings are missing, but I’m on it.

It’s amazing, I’m only on the 4th day of my, “Post Every Day of March (Apart from the first day I missed)” and already I’m struggling. Not so much with a lack of things to say, but allocating enough time to say them. I started a different post for tonight, but ended up so animated that the post started to get longer and longer and I realised that I could either post something rushed and not quite right, or save it for another day. I chose the later, which is why you’re reading this.

It’s just past 11pm, so I’m am going to be comfortably withing the 6th of March window for this post. Time now to finish my beer and wind gums, and finish watching a Digg videocast. Ahhh, work tomorrow.

At 10pm on this day, during a thunderstorm, I popped from somewhere wet and warm (mmm bare with me), into somewhere still wet, but not quiet as warm. 43 years ago seems like such a long time when you are a kid, but it sure does creep up on you. Although my body tells me, I’m not in the midst of my testosterone prime, my brain has other ideas, as I’m sure will my Wife and kids will attest.

The saying that “You are old as you feel” is certainly a saying that is the fore of my mind. That’s not to say I’m reckless, or irresponsible. I may have been guilty of that in the past, but when you settle down and have children, it’s something you have to put behind you…. well until the kids leave home anyway (I’m joking Honey).

So here I am, surround by some of the people I love. Another year has passed, but it’s the same old me. Well maybe not so old.

When I emigrated from the UK to Canada in 2000, it was essential for me to bring my books, CDs and old vinyl LPs. I’ve always thought of these as a record of my life. Hearing certain songs, evokes a memory, usually good and it’s amazing, how thumbing through my music collection, was like looking at old photos, with the memories flooding back, without the need to actually play them. Since that time however, the world has become more digital. In 2000, the world had yet to take to MP3 players in droves, as they have now. Those early MP3 players were expensive and you were lucky to store more than an album or two of music. In fact it was even unlikely that you would rip your entire CD collection to your computer, as computer disks back then were measured in megabytes, as opposed to the giga and terra bytes of today.

As the years passed, MP3 players got cheaper as did storage. My complete music collection is now stored on multiple machines. It runs at about 150 gigabytes, which is approximately 3,000 albums totaling 32,000 tracks. As I’ve embraced the digital world, I found that I hardly ever played CD’s and virtually never played vinyl, which forced me to re-evaluate the need to hang onto my vinyl. Now I know people will read this and throw their arms up and say “How could you?”, but I figured my vinyl had sat in boxes for over 10 years, virtually un-played. Sooner or later they would end up damaged or warped. So got rid of them. I managed to get a few bucks for it, but nothing like they were worth. I did the same for most of my CD collection, which ran into the thousands. I suddenly realised that they were just CD’s and not some cherished item to me. It was the music that was important, not the medium.

And now I’m coming to the same conclusion with books. Don’t get me wrong, I love books. Nothing can replace the feel of a good book in your hand. Discovering a new adventure, or far off land. But once I’ve read a book, I’m highly unlikely to ever read it again. This isn’t the case with technical or reference books, but for novels, biographies, etc. they end up just taking up room. If my house had a nice library, that would be fine, but as it is, they are stored in my basement collecting dust. I’ve already donated a few hundred to schools and will sort through the rest and do something similar. I think once I buy myself an e-book reader, my transition to the digital age will be complete.

I haven’t totally turned my back on these things I once loved. I’ve cherry picked my favourite CDs, LPs and books and plan to keep them and maybe pass them down through the family. But man it’s makes your life much less cluttered. It’s also nice not to have the obsessive need to catalogue and sort them.

I was watching the kids play in the school playground before school today (which is where the photo comes from) and had a pang of sorrow that it wasn’t me. School was never my strong suit, but I loved being around my friends and learning about life together. I’ve recounted some of the stories of my youth, but could probably fill several books. Would probably shock my parents with some of the idiotic and foolish things I’ve done. But it was always with the same, few firm friends.

When I left the UK, all of my close friends seemed to disperse too. One went to Finland, one to Derby, one to Manchester and a few to other places that I can’t remember. I still keep in contact by phone (when I remember), but nothing can beat that buzz of starting a new day of discovery with your friends.