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hirez... Yeah, right.
Bit of a weekend all round, I think. Did a set of things that I'm potentially over-pleased with, but I'm sure we'll all live. I dunno that welding in a sleeveless t-shirt was the brightest of ideas, since I have a patch of sunburn on one upper arm that I'm at a loss to otherwise explain. Still, that which does not kill us is as grist to the mill of LJ.
Anyway, in looking at some of the photos, it became obvious that (a) I'm diminishing in a quietly pleasing manner, and (b) notwithstanding (a) no-one's ever going to use the word 'fey' and my name in the same sentence again. At least not without sarcasm or negation. (The canonical prehistoric JHR photo is within the album on libeljournal and y'all can find it on your own, should the unlikely mood take you)
Instead, one sees a farmer. Specifically, my dad. (Younger, more hair, propensity for combats. You know the drill.)
I'm basically ok with that. Finally. I mean there's not much point pretending I had some kind of 'street' or 'urban' upbringing where I became 'down' with the nature and functionality of cities aged seven (any more). I grew up on a farm (ok, 3k5 acres of mixed arable, grass and woodland + shooting estate on the top of the Cotswolds) and roamed across it without let or hindrance. I played with carbide, jumped up and down on mouldering stacks of wavy asbestos, paddled in sheep dip... And fifty other life-threatening things that have currently fallen out of my brain because they were just things we did and anything that didn't damage yourself or other people was ok.
Idyllic? Only if I remember the good bits. The less good bits involve being painfully shy and living some number of miles from anyone else. Going to big school was... Quite a shock to the system.
The real bugger of being shy (for me at any rate) was/is fear of making a cock-up.
At this point it probably helps to mention that my father is one of those people who's good at pretty much everything. Not in an annoying way, but in the way that was required in post-war agriculture. Useful skills like sheep maintenance, drystone walling, plumbing, carpentry, welding, electricity, engine fettling, which wine to pick for dinner, the correct way to reply to a wedding invite... That sort of thing.
The sort of things that any useful sort of a chap would want to know anyway so as not to be seen as, well, a bit useless. A bit of a townie.
The sort of things that one has to try for oneself and make a bugger of once or twice before you actually learn anything. A bit of a problem if one's groundlessly and annoyingly over-concerned with not making a fool of oneself.
[ Sigh ]
One grows up. One learns, finally, that in order to make the R-pins, one's going to have to keep trying rather than throwing a strop and stomping off.
Bit of a weekend all round, I think. Did a set of things that I'm potentially over-pleased with, but I'm sure we'll all live. I dunno that welding in a sleeveless t-shirt was the brightest of ideas, since I have a patch of sunburn on one upper arm that I'm at a loss to otherwise explain. Still, that which does not kill us is as grist to the mill of LJ.
Anyway, in looking at some of the photos, it became obvious that (a) I'm diminishing in a quietly pleasing manner, and (b) notwithstanding (a) no-one's ever going to use the word 'fey' and my name in the same sentence again. At least not without sarcasm or negation. (The canonical prehistoric JHR photo is within the album on libeljournal and y'all can find it on your own, should the unlikely mood take you)
Instead, one sees a farmer. Specifically, my dad. (Younger, more hair, propensity for combats. You know the drill.)
I'm basically ok with that. Finally. I mean there's not much point pretending I had some kind of 'street' or 'urban' upbringing where I became 'down' with the nature and functionality of cities aged seven (any more). I grew up on a farm (ok, 3k5 acres of mixed arable, grass and woodland + shooting estate on the top of the Cotswolds) and roamed across it without let or hindrance. I played with carbide, jumped up and down on mouldering stacks of wavy asbestos, paddled in sheep dip... And fifty other life-threatening things that have currently fallen out of my brain because they were just things we did and anything that didn't damage yourself or other people was ok.
Idyllic? Only if I remember the good bits. The less good bits involve being painfully shy and living some number of miles from anyone else. Going to big school was... Quite a shock to the system.
The real bugger of being shy (for me at any rate) was/is fear of making a cock-up.
At this point it probably helps to mention that my father is one of those people who's good at pretty much everything. Not in an annoying way, but in the way that was required in post-war agriculture. Useful skills like sheep maintenance, drystone walling, plumbing, carpentry, welding, electricity, engine fettling, which wine to pick for dinner, the correct way to reply to a wedding invite... That sort of thing.
The sort of things that any useful sort of a chap would want to know anyway so as not to be seen as, well, a bit useless. A bit of a townie.
The sort of things that one has to try for oneself and make a bugger of once or twice before you actually learn anything. A bit of a problem if one's groundlessly and annoyingly over-concerned with not making a fool of oneself.
[ Sigh ]
One grows up. One learns, finally, that in order to make the R-pins, one's going to have to keep trying rather than throwing a strop and stomping off.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 03:44 pm (UTC)*nods* I have one of those... built an MG model B up from the bodyshell and rust with nettles growing through it and built the house we lived in while he did it (except the plumbing because it was a pressured system and illegal to work on without a licence). I fetched bricks, roof tiles and held his tools and still can't reliably point to the bit of an engine which is the alternator or tell a joist from a truss (if indeed there is a difference).
On the other hand, he can't work out how to install an anti-virus checker never mind network his computers.
I had that country living thing too - I could milk a goat at the age of five - no idea if I could now mind you. Learned useful skills like "kick the asbestos down to the bottom of the skip or they won't take it away" and "telephone cables sound like star wars space-ship fire if you can hit them with an air rifle pellet."
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 04:18 pm (UTC)And that Star Wars noise is all over documentaries on the TV at the moment - you know, twanging taut fat cables.
I wasn't brought up on a farm, but I wasn't far from farmland. Or the pit. Sundays were a special treat as there was only a skeleton security staff on at the pit.
I think that making damns was my favourite pastime though.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 04:21 pm (UTC)I think that making damns was my favourite pastime though.
ooooh yes... that rocked mightily.
Damn Right!
Date: 2004-05-18 05:53 am (UTC)Re: Damn Right!
Date: 2004-05-19 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 04:39 pm (UTC)As you say.
It's always been a concern of mine that, should the balloon go up and society crumbles about our ears in a Wyndhamline manner, MCSEs are going to be food and thee and I will likely be scurrying hither and yon as fathers the length of the land go "Fetch me the Stilsons. No, the other one. It's in the blue toolbox. The other blue toolbox."
no subject
Date: 2004-05-19 03:46 am (UTC)"Uh... dad... you know how civilisation's collapsed and everything. So could you come and fix me up an emergency generator and secuirty doors and some kind of electrocution trap for barbarian raiders.
.
.
.
Yeah sure, I'll help you download windows patches in return.
.
.
.
Hold on, how come you still have an internet connection?
.
.
.
You built your own internet? From wood?"
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 04:42 pm (UTC)Joist wrote "Ulysses",
Truss wrote "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 04:13 pm (UTC)Which is, of course, pretty much the same for R-pins and building mail servers and tying shoelaces. But somehow, because of the circumstances when you start trying them, they become either comfortable or a bit scary.
It's gratifying how quickly these concerns vanish into history once one actually gets one of these things going....
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 04:34 pm (UTC)Make a point of remembering not being able to drive.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 05:16 pm (UTC)I tend to be surrounded by very high calibre folk: intelligent, widely read, good at what they do, generally leave me feeling a bit thick.
My company runs a technical support line for a well-known IDE, and one of my duties is to take a turn answering it. I regularly feel a lot better after doing so.
Perspective: I keep a roll of duct tape and a bottle of water in the car to treat the inevitable split hose, and it has saved me on more than one occasion. I can do brake pads and shoes. Folks I work with think I'm a mechanical genius *LOL*
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 02:36 am (UTC)I'm gald that I wasn't The only one. Going from a school of 34 pupils to one of 1,600. Was an extream shock to the system. Spent the 1st year faking every illness known to man!
My Primary School: Sapperton, Nr Cirencester
Must admit having miles of feilds to roam and hay bails and trees to climb, made my childhood great/hayfeverish!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 02:41 am (UTC)(Now, remind me which wire is earth...)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 02:58 am (UTC)Grandfather Sewell was a metalwork teacher, model engineer, and top-class shed-filler. But they lived far away, in Grantham, so I had this intermittent exposure to steam and tiny brass bolts and model boats and so on from tiny. I didn't learn how to do it, but I knew what it smelled like.
Father wasn't realy interested in this stuff, but happy to help out with my childish whims.
School had metalwork, so I got to know a bit about how to work a lathe and a file and a hammer.
Then nothing happened for a while, till I moved to Wales and we bought Glyn's Dad's school's old lathes and met Dingbat and so on.
At which point I had the luxuries of:
- A shed with machine tools in.
- An income.
- Plenty of time to noodle away more-or-less on my own.
- Friends who were interested, so there was a bit of a fermenting of ideas, but who were all fellow amateurs.
I think it's the noodling away on one's own that is the most important. You need to have enough facility with the tools to know roughly what to do, and then you just fool about with bits of metal till it works.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 03:19 am (UTC)I think it's exactly that concern that causes one to do things properly. It's certainly one of the main factors in severe cases of 'attention to detail'.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 05:22 am (UTC)But. In order to be able to do things properly, you have to learn how in the first place. If you get it right first time, that's lovely, but I don't think you've actually learned anything.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 06:45 am (UTC)Though a surprising number of things seem (before starting) as though they're in the 'probably going to go horribly wrong' department, but actually turn out OK. Not perfect, but good enough that you can be pleased with them. And the next one will come out much better.
So it's not even that you have to endure making terrible mistakes all the time - you just need to endure the feeling that you might make a terrible mistake.
Resonating wildly
Date: 2004-05-18 05:55 am (UTC)