Planet Sillicon

Still very busy

By blog on Aug. 30, 2009.

And I’m not fond of it! I want more relax time, but there always seems to be more that needs my attention before I can relax.

For instance, I had a friend approach me to help them with some finance stuff, because they were looking to create an investment portfolio and they knew that I was interested in that sort of thing. I think basically he wanted to have some idea before he met with an accountant so he could sound the guy out. By no means am I an expert, but when you have friends that can tell you anything about something as… open to misuse by others, as money, then you make use of their expertise when you can!

I pointed him in the direction of a few good sites and said I would help more when I had the time, or he could go ahead and investigate all this himself. I wanted to help, but I didn’t have the time to sit down and help properly, and I didn’t want to help half-assedly. He came back to me today to say that he had found a good offshore financial service, and that he was going to be investigating it further. He offered to pass along what he found, too.

I found it really refreshing to see someone really doing their homework before investing anywhere, especially as, like me, the guy is busy! If everyone was as careful with where they put their money, then I think a lot of people would be a lot less worried in general life. That’s just the way it seems to me, anyway. There are things that are way beyond our control, like what happened to the international finance markets, and that is always going to be the case, but if we are careful with what we do have control over, then I’m guessing we would be able to accept easier those situations that weren’t our faults, and have a lot less situations where we could have done something differently to gain a better outcome. I’m rambling now, I know it. That’s it then, enough.

Bad Cab Rides

By blog on Jul. 29, 2009.

My SO and I decided take-out was the order of the day, last night, so off I went in a cab to pick it up. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong! Add in a ridiculously bad cab driver, it was anything but simple!

I called the cab around twenty past nine and was pleasantly surprised to find it on my doorstep at nine-thirty. When I say ‘on my doorstep’ I mean, parked across the street with no intention of coming over. Okay, so I cross the road, and hop in the back seat. Now, I live in a suburb just outside a major city centre. I tell him where I wanted to go – a very well known restaurant in the city. Whilst having the car pointed towards the city, he says to me, ‘You’ll have to give me directions’ and then says ‘can I get out this way’. This is a street, not a court, mind you.

I tell the guy the directions for getting onto the main road going into town – the restaurant is on that road. Now, as we are driving along, I hear this annoying ding, ding, ding, noise. I can see in the dashboard that the seat belt buckle sign is flashing at the driver… He’s not wearing is damn seat belt! He’s also pushing the speed limit, driving right up behind a huge truck, and quite jerkily too.

We get closer to the restaurant, all he has to do is go a short way around a large round-about, and then drive into the car-park for the place. I tell him exactly where to go – whilst my mind boggles that I even have to tell him, seriously, this restaurant is that well known – and he completely misses the turn off into the car-park. I tell him what he’s done, and he pulls over, and I have to tell him to do a U-turn, go back round the round-about, and turn into the car-park.

He turns around, goes round the round-about, without a turning signal(!?) and turns into the wrong car-park. It’s close enough, so I pay and get out. Usually, I would ask the driver to wait, as I was just picking up some take-out, but I couldn’t stand this driver, so I didn’t say anything. I made a mental note of the number of the cab, and I will be calling the company later today to mention the numerous traffic infringements and plain lack of necessary geographical knowledge for the city.

By the time I got home I could at least relate the story to my SO without any fury, I can see the funny side of it, but at the time it was very annoying.

Why can’t it be simple?

By blog on Apr. 29, 2009.

My SO and I have been with each other for nearly nine years now. It’s been quite a while, and there are no intentions from either side of this partnership, of things coming to an end. And yet my mother finds this a difficult concept to grasp. Yes, she still doesn’t think we are ‘right’ for each other, or believe we will stay together, and still insists on talking up available women to me.

My mother is often meeting people, she is quite sociable, and she often tells me of what she has been up to, who she has been meeting, that sort of thing. As I have said, she lives in a retirement community, and there are all sorts of staff there. Nurses, activity coordinators, admin staff, etc. My mother will often tell me of how lovely this nurse is or this nurse is, over the phone, and I don’t say a thing. I don’t really care that they are nice past being appreciative that they are kind to my mother. Oh and if you said anything about this to my mother, she wouldn’t have a clue what you are talking about. It is such a subconscious thing that she doesn’t realise she is doing it. I have wondered if it is just me being odd in how I perceive her, but I have talked about this with other people and their reactions confirmed it… it’s really odd behavior.

Recently my SO and I went to visit her, and she started talking about one of the staff at the retirement community. She went on and on about this woman, about how nice she was, how she was available, how she was thinking she was going to end up a spinster. All the while, my SO and I are exchanging the most covert of looks to one another, her trying very hard not to crack up. She isn’t a fan of this behavior, but this was the first time it had so clearly been done right in front of her. Before this it was always over the phone, but it is an ongoing joke between us. To her credit, she managed to not laugh throughout my mother’s recommendation of this particular staff member.

So I ask myself, why can’t it be simple? Why can’t these two rational, friendly, caring human beings get along properly, rather than the pleasant but oddly tense relationship they currently have. I don’t know what it is about mother in law and daughter in law relationships, because these two used to be quite close… it seems to me that no one is immune from the curse that is this particular association!