Recursive Words

Where the hell has the last week gone? Seriously. You look away for a few seconds and several day have passed.

Of course I wasn’t “doing nothing” during those days, but then if I even began to explain, you might fall asleep where you’re standing. I’ll have to a go, and apologise in advance if you hurt yourself.

The Boeing 777-300ER arrived in the fight simulator last weekend. If you’ve never seen a 777, they’re something of a giant – the circumference of each of their engines is bigger than the circumference of a 737, or A320 (your typical short-haul holiday jet).

I learned how to operate the 777 some time ago, so set off on a late night live-stream – and setup artificially intelligent air traffic services to talk to me en-route (yes, that’s a thing – it’s both impressive, and intimidating at the same time). During the flight one of the team leads that built the simulated 777, and one of the team leads that built the AI system joined the stream. No pressure then. Suffice to say I landed the pretend aeroplane in one piece, and then collapsed in a corner (or rather, went and cut the lawn).

Fast forward a couple of days, and another new aircraft arrived in the flight simulator mid week – called the “Beechcraft Starship”. It was designed in the early 1980s in a collaboration between Beechcraft, and Burt Rutan – the guy who became famous for designing “Voyager” – the plane that flew around the world. Starship was going to be a huge step forwards – and was a huge step forwards – but nobody was brave enough to buy it, so only 50 were ever made – of which 6 are still airworthy world-wide.

So… the Starship arrived in the Simulator. I finished work that day, downloaded it, and started to figure out how to operate it. Half-way through the first test flight – while broadcasting live on YouTube – my other half called because she couldn’t plug her computer into a projector at a training evening for an upcoming summer camp in town. I therefore went straight under the bus, stopped the broadcast, and ran across town with a replacement laptop that would work. By the time I got there another laptop had been found.

At midnight that night I re-appeared online, having learned every corner of the avionics and navigation system of the new aircraft, and set off across the US (because it was still daylight there), showing the online audience how to avoid putting the plane into the ground. I must have done something right, because the lead developer of the aircraft emailed me the next morning.

This weekend an embargo was lifted on some AI technology I’ve known about for some time – and that I had been given early access to. Not only can you now simulate flying your own plane – you can also see other aircraft in the sky flying their own routes, and you can hear them on the radio, talk to air traffic services, and be sequenced in among them. It was slightly unnerving taxiing out at Gatwick, following a pretend pilot, and listening to the to and from of his conversation with ground control while making our way out to the runway.

Fast forward another few hours, and I found myself broadcasting again on YouTube, after discovering that the mighty Airbus A380 was now available for the simulator. If you’ve visited an international airport in recent years you’ve probably seen the gargantuan A380s lumbering past – they’re the ones with two decks of seating.

This is going to sound like deja vu – I learned how to operate and navigate the A380 some time ago.

So… I fired the A380 up last night, and set out to demonstrate it to the online audience once more – taking off from a virtual recreation of Toulouse at about 10:30pm and landing at Gatwick a little before midnight.

Today – while “taking a break from it all”, I somehow found myself not taking a break from it at all – and resurrected the tour facility within the virtual airline I setup a couple of years ago. Yes, I run a virtual airline too. I setup tours for people to fly around England, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, and Spain.

Oh – and I built a forum too. I forgot about that.

This evening I’m watching rubbish on the internet, writing this, and wondering about making a coffee.

I need to run in the morning before work.

I don’t really have any sort of big message to relate about any of the above – just that when people find out I’m making money at a side hustle on YouTube, I don’t think they have any inkling of how much hard work it is – or how much time it takes. It started out as “flying pretend aeroplanes”, but it’s rapidly turned into not only flying them correctly, but also planning properly, communicating properly, and demonstrating properly. It’s a lot. And I kind of love it – even when I’m mentally exhausted.

It’s also a slippery slope. Knowing you can make money through doing something means you always know you can make more by doing more of it – and it’s all too easy to lose yourself.

What did Jack Nicholson type on the typewriter in The Shining? “Too much work and not enough play makes Jack a dull boy”…

Mercifully, a group of neighbours came together this weekend to say farewell to a family that is immigrating to the US. It was a wonderful excuse to step away from the computer, away from the pretend aeroplanes, and remind myself that I have friends – and that I really need to spend more time with them.

Writing too. Writing this, this evening, has reminded me how much I love writing. I should do it more – even if it’s not about much. Norah Ephron had words to say about that, didn’t she.

It’s “Father’s Day” in the UK today – a tradition that seems to have been adopted from the US at some point in the distant past – quite obviously a commercial tactic to sell stationery and chocolates, because what says “I love you Dad” more than a rectangle of cardboard with your handwriting on it? (actually – scratch that thought – the likes of Moonpig will now print the handwriting for you).

I can’t really complain – my daughters took me out for breakfast today. We were originally planning to go out for lunch, but after getting up and realising my daughters were already up and about I wondered out-loud if it might be a better idea to go out for a late breakfast. They agreed, and a few minutes later we set off into town together.

It just so happened the entire rest of the town had the same idea. The huge pub where my daughter works – our breakfast destination – was filled to capacity – about 450 people. There was an hour wait for food. We shrugged and put up with it. They serve bottomless coffee, so we each grabbed a mug and started drinking enough caffeine to give us the shakes before the food arrived.

After eating we wandered back out into the sunshine and picked our way along the high-street – visiting the bookshop, and various shops filled with incredibly expensive diffusers. I might have caved and bought a “Sea salt and sage” diffuser for the study – to help stop it smelling quite so dusty in here. I also caved and picked up a couple of books. Even more books to add to the top of the “to be read” mountain.

The funfair is in town this weekend – and after meeting up with my other half, we set off through the various rides and stalls with the children. I will admit to being ever-so-slightly creeped out by funfairs these days – I think it’s too many years watching sinister movies and TV shows featuring all manner of evil emanating from the shadows of carnival stalls and rides.

I read a book years ago about a travelling carnival – “Something Wicked This Way Comes” – by Ray Bradbury. It might be the only one of his books I’ve read.

I still haven’t gotten around to reading “A Moveable Feast” by Ernest Hemingway. I picked up a copy in a second-hand bookshop in Hay-on-Wye when we visited the other week.

After wandering around the funfair, and the town carnival stalls, we wandered home again, and met up with some neighbours on the green between our houses. We haven’t done it for a while, and it was nice to see them. It’s funny – after writing about being “out of the loop” just recently, being back in the loop felt strange – like a performance of sorts.

Anyway.

I can’t believe it’s already 10pm. I have to go and help clear up the kitchen. The rest of the house had “party food” for dinner (read: ready-cooked food from packets). It’s almost certainly still strewn across the kitchen counters.

Coffee. I’ll go make a coffee too.

It’s been a bit of a week. The Windows laptop has been handed on to my eldest daughter, and the Amazon tablet has been handed on to my other half. An iPad arrived yesterday. We had a couple of iPads in the family years ago, so it’s not entirely alien to me.

Earlier in the week I made the mistake of trying out my other half’s AirPods (Apple’s eye-waveringly expensive ear-buds) while she was working from home for the day. They were very, very good. So good that I’m considering saving up for some to replace the no-name tinny ear-buds I’ve been using for the last couple of years.

I’m guessing the final piece of the jigsaw will be an Apple Watch at some point. I really don’t know though – I’m not sure I would benefit at all from it. I use a FitBit at the moment – one of their lower-end models that looks like a strap around your wrist. It was a novelty in the beginning – tracking sleep and so on – but the Apple Watch probably wouldn’t be doing that even – it would invariably be on charge during the night.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the smooth integration of the various Apple devices. While it was the primary reason for switching, it’s also an unexpected boon after spending so many years using devices that know nothing about each other. Performing two factor authentication and having a code from your phone pop up on the computer screen is kind of wonderful. Adjoining any of the screens and using them with the same mouse and keyboard is also unexpected (you can sit an iPad or a MacBook near a Mac mini, and drag the mouse through the edge of each screen into each device – the clipboard works across all the devices too. It’s very odd the first time you do it.

I’m sure there will be more discoveries along the way – and more frustrations – caused by nothing more than my own lack of knowledge (or talent). Re-learning takes time.

I watched an interesting episode of “Linus Tech Tips” on YouTube this week, where the hosts switched to MacBooks for a month after being life-long Windows users. After a similar journey to myself, they both ended up buying their own MacBooks at the end of the journey – which flew in the face of all expectations at the start of the trial.

I find it amusing that choice of computers or video game machines is so divisive. When I posted about switching, an immediate comment arrived essentially trashing me personally – but it was outweighed by a flood of support from others in similar situations that had ended up making the same choices I had.

Enough about all of that.

It’s the weekend. I woke up this morning with a start, looked at the clock, then turned to my other half and exclaimed that it was already nearly 8am. She murmured “it’s Saturday”, and it took me a few moments to put the pieces together in my head. I’m such an idiot sometimes.

We did the pub quiz in the week with some friends, and almost won the damn thing. We came second. If my other half had written down two of my answers, and listened to our middle daughter for one of her answers, we would have won the entire thing by several points. Oh well. There’s always next time.

It’s funny – even though I’ve escaped for a moment here and there, it feels like I’ve been on a treadmill for the last few months – working, working, working. Everybody I know seems to be in the same boat. It’s an odd feeling. I invariably see others doing things – going out – having fun – whatever it is, and have moments of feeling like I’m missing out – but then realise they’re all in the same boat. Their chance night’s out are similarly stolen from endless days or weeks of working themselves into the floor.

Oh – I started running again!

I finally knuckled down and got on with it – starting the Couch to 5K again. Next week is week 3. I’m deliberately taking it slowly because I’ve not run for about 18 months. In that time I’ve put on weight, which isn’t shifting very easily. Sitting down all day for work doesn’t help. I’ve tried to escape at lunchtime for a walk several times this week, and somehow lost my lunchtimes every day – with calls, or whatever trampling all over them.

Anyway.

I’m going to go cut the grass – mostly to avoid the running argument that’s happening around the house. It’s not going to be easy to cut because I was instructed to let it grow to help the insects…

The Mac mini arrived. And the iPhone. The biggest barrier at the moment seems to be my own ability to learn new ways of doing things, or to forget the ways I used to do things. In some ways switching over has been a good exercise – forcing me to “clean house” – sorting out passwords, bookmarks, file shares – you name it.

Over time I had ended up with bits and pieces spread across all manner of cloud platforms. I guess it’s pretty unavoidable when you have footprints spread across the Microsoft, Google, and Apple infrastructure. When you start adding the likes of Dropbox, Notion and Obsidian into the mix, it starts to get out of control.

The first casualty at home has been Microsoft 365. It has always been a “nice to have” that we seldom use – born mostly out of me running out of storage space on my previous Windows desktop. Rather than solve the problem, I just purchased more storage – which then gifted the entire family Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneDrive – which they never used.

My entire family have lived in the Google cloud for years – and have Android phones. I’m the rebel – jumping ship to the Apple ecosystem. I’m still running Google Chrome on the Mac though, because Safari is awful.

Anyway.

While writing this I’m on my second glass of wine, and Bette Midler has started singing “From a Distance”. I remember this becoming a huge hit during the Gulf War, and being played along with footage of servicemen coming home to tearful families.

How is it half past midnight already? Where did the evening go?

I should probably go collapse into bed.

Oh – by the way – I ran again this morning. I’m in the middle of week two of “Couch to 5K”. It hasn’t become difficult yet. I’m starting to realise that “just running” isn’t going to lose me any weight – although saying that, I lost nearly a kilogram last week just by not eating rubbish.

We’re going out with friends tomorrow night. I can’t imagine a couple of pints of cider are going to do the health plan any good. Oh well.

My mobile phone came up for renewal last week. After a few days of abject indecision, I finally pulled the trigger on its replacement this afternoon. An iPhone will arrive through the post tomorrow. After several years using an Android phone as a daily driver, I’m heading back to Apple.

This was all triggered by the arrival of a MacBook from my other half’s work a few days ago – retired from office work, but plenty good enough for home use.

To be honest, it’s high time I started whittling down the veritable museum of old or dysfunctional computers that litter the room – the old Windows XP machine that’s sat dormant for years, the half-broken Windows 10 machine sitting under the other desk, the Chromebook(s) that we never quite got around to disposing of (we’re good at pouring tea and coffee into laptops, so held on to them), and the collection of various Raspberry Pi machines.

We won’t talk about the vintage iMac sitting in the attic. Or the ZIP drive.

They’re all being replaced by an iPhone, a MacBook, and a Mac Mini. A refurbished iPad could make an appearance in the not-too-distant future too – replacing the Amazon Fire tablet. We’ll see.

I was talking to a co-worker recently who has done the same thing. He works with Windows computers all day at work – the same as me – that’s not changing – but just wanted something that wasn’t Microsoft related when he got home.

There’s also the integration question. One of the huge advantages of the Apple ecosystem is the integration of its various parts. Sure, you’re not always going to agree with the way things work, and of course Apple is pretty unbending in that regard – but then if you’re happy to live with the way things have been designed, life suddenly becomes a LOT easier.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not about to become one of those zealots that champions whatever they have chosen over anything else. I’ve owned Macs before. I’ve owned iPhones before. I’m just making decisions that make sense to me, for me, at this moment. It might not be the right decision for anybody else, but it is for me. There will be things about the Apple machines that drive me crazy, but then there are things in Android, Windows, and ChromeOS that drive me crazy too.

Anyway.

I need to go sort something out for dinner. There were rumours of ordering a delivery from somewhere earlier. All the kids are out. That kind of opens up a world of dietary possibilities, doesn’t it.

In related news, I tried out Ramen noodles for the first time at Wetherspoons last night. Now I understand why everybody raves about them – they were very, very good.

A few days ago my other half mentioned that she had a couple of Macbooks at work that were being retired, and wondered if I might be interested in them. I tentatively said “maybe”, knowing that we have a house full of computers of all shapes and sizes already.

There’s a part of me saying “it will be interesting to see what Apple have done in recent years” (I had a lovely white Macbook about 18 years ago), but there’s another part of me that says “do you really need this?” I already have Chromebooks, Windows, and Linux machines around the house – not to mention Android phones.

I guess curiosity killed this cat.

This morning while getting ready to leave for work my other half pulled the old Macbooks from the back of the car and left them on the desk in the junk room. It still amuses me that part of her job is installing and managing laptops for the company she works at. She’s good at it too. I’m guessing they are still small enough that the office admin staff look after operational IT – wearing all the hats, all the time. I used to work for a similarly sized company years ago (decades ago… gulp) – I was their first IT specialist as they grew. I sometimes miss it.

This evening I’ve been poking around at one of the Macbooks – installing software, and watching the battery deplete – wondering what sort of life it has had, and how much life it still has left in it. It would be a shame for it to end up in a recycling centre somewhere. Yes, it’s not the fastest machine in the world, and no, the battery doesn’t last that long, but it still works.

I’ve told my other half to make an offer on both of them.

You know the funny thing? My mobile phone has come up for renewal recently, and for one reason or another I’ve not gotten around to putting the upgrade order in. I thought the mobile service provider’s website had gone wrong this past weekend when it would only offer me iPhones as upgrades to my existing Android phone.

Maybe the universe was making me wait.

First impressions of the Macbook I’m using – and macOS, I suppose – after so many years away from it – is that Apple hasn’t really changed. Their bundled software and cloud platform are just as bad as they ever were, and their hardware is just as good as it ever was. Their technology products are still massively over-priced, and still manufactured in sweat-shops in China.

It’s always amused me that people take sides – between either Microsoft, Apple, or Linux. I’ve used all of them for years – they all serve the same purposes, although in slightly different ways. Once you’ve used enough different computer systems you almost become ambivalent about any particular flavour – if you can still get what you want done, it’s all good.

Anyway.

I’m running again in the morning. Still in “week 1” of the Couch-to-5k programme. I’m deliberately taking it very slowly, because it’s been so long. The temptation – and I know what I’m like – will be to start skipping weeks, to jump towards running 5k. I know it will happen about a month in – I’ve been there before. Here’s hoping I don’t. It’s not a race this time – it’s about forging a habit – making running a normal part of life once again.

It probably sounds a bit silly, but I’m actually looking forward to tomorrow’s run.

After tipping myself out of bed at 7am this morning, I pulled on some running shorts, and headed out of the door to re-start the “Couch to 5K” programme. It’s only been… oh, 20 months since running anywhere at all?

Armed with the official NHS Couch to 5K app, and with Steve Cram filling my ears with motivational thoughts – backed by a retro jogging playlist from Spotify – I set off.

Oh my word, have I ever become unfit.

I’m guessing it’s going to take a few weeks to remind my body that it used to be able to run 5K every day like clockwork. I know better than to rush things, so will take it slowly.

I’m also trying to lose some weight – mostly by not eating rubbish in-between meals. Hardly rocket science, but I know I’m guilty of it. We have a pretty good diet at home most weeks. I am wondering about keeping a diary of what I’ve eaten though – and to not lie to myself about it. It’s about accountability.

After running I posted a photo to Instagram – I’m guessing I should try to do that at least once a week – so I can see progress. I’m hoping the scales will show progress pretty quickly.

I wonder how much rubbish is in the coffee pods from the coffee machine? If I switch out to drinking water it will probably help too.

Anyway.

I’ll shut up about running. I find fitness and diet blogs insufferable at the best of times – so probably best not to add to their number if I can help it. I do have a sort-of-funny story to relate though.

Back when I did the 100km charity run in 2023, I bought some half-decent running earbuds. I ended up with two pairs, because the first pair failed. While sorting through old electrical stuff recently, my other half held a set of earbuds up and asked “are these any good?” – and I thought they were the broken ones, so said “no”. I thought wrong. I threw away the good ones.

Amazon delivered a new set of earbuds this morning (after my run).

Is it sad that I’m looking forward to the next run, purely to try out the new earbuds?

Did you know in Japan there is a phrase for the accumulation of unread books? “Tsondoku”. It means “pile of reading”.

I can never quite decide if “having a quiet weekend” is missing out on opportunities to be here, there, and everywhere, or if stepping away from the mayhem is somehow more valuable. I know people talk about “investing in yourself”, but it can easily get to the point where you’ve not seen anybody for weeks or months.

Writing “not seen anybody” sounds horrible too – because I obviously cross paths with co-workers and clients all the time at work – but that’s not by choice. It’s a difficult one, isn’t it. We still become friends with co-workers, but somehow it’s different than those that are outside of the every day grind.

I think that’s why I like the little (and we’re talking very small) circle of friends I’ve made online over the years. They know who they are. I wonder if they know how much I’ve come to appreciate them though – that they are in my life – no matter how infrequently we might catch up with one-another.

I sometimes see photos from them on social media – usually of their children growing up – and think “oh my word – I remember so-and-so being born”. It’s kind of wonderful when social media works properly – to be afforded the occasional peak outside of our own life – to remember that life goes on.

I will freely admit to being the worst for focusing entirely on whatever it is I’m doing or interested in, and falling away from everything and everyone around me.

This evening I looked in on a “pen pal” website I joined during the pandemic. I found myself wondering about reaching out again – but then thought that might be wrong. Given that those days lead to wonderful friendships – some of which have sustained – I wondered if searching further is somehow similar to walking into a bookstore when you already have a stack of unread books.

Did you know in Japan there is a phrase for the accumulation of unread books? “Tsondoku”. It means “pile of reading”.

I wonder if there’s a word for old friends you haven’t reached out to for some time – that you really should?

I’ve always found the forging of friendship both mysterious and magical. You can spend all the time in the world with somebody, and never really know them – and you can also meet somebody and feel like you’ve always known them.

Jim Henson once said “there’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met”. Perhaps if there was, it wouldn’t feel so special.

Standing in front of real, living, breathing people – your professional peers – is somehow different.

After travelling north with several co-workers this morning, we arrived at our destination and temporary home for the next few days – a typical corporate hotel nestled in the countryside.

I always find corporate hotels a bit soul-less. This one is clean, tidy, functional… but it’s not the sort of place you would stay while visiting an area for a break or getaway. It’s huge, has countless meeting rooms, and all manner of lounges with coffee machines (which only appear to be on during the day).

You’ll hopefully realise I can’t write much about the content of the day – hence why you’re getting the worst hotel review ever posted to the internet.

The food is wonderful. For lunch I had some sort of pulled pork thing, and for dinner some sort of chicken thing with steamed vegetables. As you can probably tell, I’m not the most discerning culinary critic. I’m not having to wash up though – which makes it automatically wonderful.

I volunteered to present some of the work I’ve been involved in a few weeks ago – yes, I’m a fool – without realising quite how many people would be watching. Most of the company, it turns out.

I didn’t think the presentation had gone particularly well – I had planned to talk about for more than I ended up covering.

Entirely unexpectedly a succession of people came to find me in the bar later to congratulate me. I actually became somewhat embarrassed by the unexpected attention in the end – which is mad, because I regularly post content to YouTube that is viewed by thousands.

Standing in front of real, living, breathing people – your professional peers – is somehow different.

Anyway.

With the prospect of an open bar, and being rubbish at drinking, I paced myself throughout the evening – eventually switching to soft drinks (much to the derision of friends and co-workers). This also seemed to coincide with the far more skilled drinkers starting to shout their conversations in each other’s faces. I called an end to the night for myself.

And that’s how I find myself now sitting in the hotel room, listening to an easy-listening radio station on the hotel TV, and sipping the most god-awful coffee in the known universe.

There was one thing that made me laugh out loud in the hotel room. I can’t not share it. When I switched the television on, it defaulted to the last channel watched (by the previous guest, I’m guessing) – “Babestation”. I’m not sure what time it starts broadcasting, if indeed it will start broadcasting at all.

I thought the late-night adult TV channels died out years ago. Who knew they still exist?!

Anyway… (yes, a second anyway)

I’m going to post this to the internet, make another coffee (to hopefully sober myself back up), then collapse onto the hotel bed. Don’t worry about the caffeine – I think I’m probably immune to it’s effects these days.

Who wants to lay bets that the next blog post will come from the hotel room?

I have to get up sensibly early tomorrow – to meet at a co-worker’s house ahead of a fairly long journey “up country”. Everybody vaguely technical in the company I work for is travelling to a hotel for a couple of days – a tech conference “of the staff, for the staff” – or something like that. I’m not entirely sure, if I’m entirely honest. I’m going to be presenting during the afternoon, which will be fun.

My other half has designs on taking over the junk room while I’m away – working from home, and spreading her work Macbook, iPhone and whatever else out across the workspace I normally inhabit.

I used to own a Mac.

I still have an old iMac in the attic.

The whole family had iPhones for a little while too.

We’ve all ended up with chromebooks and pixel phones at home, mostly because we can buy Chromebooks for all five of us for the same price as one Macbook – and given that all we ever want to do is write an email, message a friend or watch YouTube, there’s not much point having anything more.

I’ll studiously ignore the leviathan hiding under the desk that runs the flight simulator. It probably draws as much power as the rest of the electrical devices in the house combined.

Anyway.

I should go have a wash, and try to find a wash-bag for the trip tomorrow. I’m packing light – wallet, phone, a change of shirt, underwear and socks, a washbag, and my work computer. That’s it. Oh – and some charging cables.

Who wants to lay bets that the next blog post will come from the hotel room?