Getting To Know Me
It occurred to me this afternoon that while I often recount the story of a day, or express an opinion about something or other, I very rarely describe myself at all. Given that I have a few minutes to spare, I thought it might be an interesting exercise to throw some random observations down in a list.
I am 43 years old. Being older than Douglas Adams's answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything is kind of depressing, but I rarely think about my age – other than realising now and again that not being a part of the clubbing culture when I was in my early 20s has resulted in me ageing better than some.
I am pretty tall – 6ft 3ish. I used to be 6' 4”, but seem to be getting ever-so-slightly smaller each year now. I imagine by the time I'm 90 I'll be about the same size as Yoda (and have the same size ears).
I have never been very overweight, but that's mostly because I don't eat junk all the time. My kryptonite is pizza, but I consciously avoid eating ittoo often. Cycling to work (when I'm based in the office) has probably kept the weight off a little too – I cycle the 6 mile round trip to work every day, and always walk the mile or so into town and back to get groceries.
I have never been unemployed – mostly through luck, but also I would like to think through hard work. I lucked into being interested in computers at the same time as they became essential to getting work done. I have always had a good work ethic – no doubt instilled by my Dad who worked like a Trojan throughout my childhood.
Before meeting the girl that would become my better half, I never had any long term girlfriends. Sure, I went out on “dates” (although never thought of them as such), but my other half was my first serious relationship when I was 26 years old.
I cannot have children. We discovered this a couple of years after getting married. We tried IVF, and blew our bank account to pieces in the process. We have never got back on top of “having any money” since.
After failing at having our own children, we adopted three little girls back in 2008, and have never looked back. They fill our days with just about every emotion you might imagine, and although hard work at the best of times, make us smile every day.
Lots of people seem to think I'm some sort of privileged idiot. I can assure you I am not. I'm writing this blog post on a PC made out of bits of other PCs that failed, that were given to me. My phone is the cheapest Android phone I could afford. My Kindle is the cheapest model available. I pretty much wear clothes until there are holes in them – most of my wardrobe is from discount sports stores, or Primark (does Primark exist in the US?).
I used to love playing video games, but don't really have time any more. We have a Wii U that we share as a family, and a few retro consoles bought from second-hand stores. I sometimes look at the latest Playstations and XBoxes wistfully, but know we cannot afford them, and wouldn't have time to play on them anyway.
We have never restricted our children from the internet, or from video games – the result : it's a sunny day and they are outside playing football with their friends outside the house. I'm ridiculously pleased about that.
I've written a blog on the internet since before blogging became a thing. I've moved the blog around a lot over the years, which I kind of regret because I've lost touch with so many people through doing so.
If you made it all the way through this post, you probably deserve a medal. I'm really not THAT interesting. Normal guy, working in a normal job, with a normal family, and without that many apsirations. While staying at my parents last week my Mum commented “you don't have a hobby do you” – I hadn't really thought about it before – no... I don't.