We're having a baby

We are having a baby ©

By

Michael Casey

We are having a baby, after much though and heartache we have decided to have a baby, it will be our 3rd. Now in Google search that’ll be condensed so everybody will be mislead until they click and read the full version. Yes we are having a baby, and yes it will be our 3rd, but not a baby baby, which would indeed be our 3rd. No we are not trying for a boy after having two girls, we are just having a 3rd baby, I mentioned it to my eldest daughter on my way back with a coffee in my hand, she said it wouldn’t be a 3rd baby, it would be a 4th baby, or even a 5th baby. You see we had a new Tv after ours gave up the ghost after 16 years, so the new Toshiba was a baby, and our new noisy whistling kettle was a baby too. What I’m really saying is that our computer has reached the age when it should be replaced. The baby I’m on about is a new Emachine computer, a baby computer because it should be so much smaller than the original one from over 7 years ago. Best of all it was on offer, 200 off. If it wasn’t on offer it would have stayed in the shop, but we really need our computer so thankfully a cheap one has popped up to save the day.

As for our current Emachine that’ll find a new home with somebody who had our last old baby, a tradition is forming, he has our old cache which saves him cash. Its nice if you can recycle things, and I’m sure our friend will spruce it up to make it better than we had it. I know somebody who has a computer who has never done a disc cleanup, but that’s another story. As for us I now have to backup our old files, can you imagine how many 1000 photos you take when you have a young children; you have to send them to grandma in Shanghai and friends in Toyko and Taiwan and Singapore, and the most exotic Stourbridge and Reading and Frankfurt. You do have some on the family website but now as change is in the air you must backup everything, you cannot lose your children’s childhood snaps.

Yesterday I looked at USB sticks they can be pretty expensive, finally I worked out how much stuff we just had to backup and move. Play.com turned out to have the best offer for 16gig flash security. Lets hope it’s a simple as I think it is to back things up, I have 14gig of stuff to backup. As you can imagine I have to keep my other babies safe, my stories my writing, which are dreams in themselves. I had them on floppy discs scattered all around my house. I do have my site  www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com  so my “masterpieces” will survive fire and floor and even nuclear war as the are on a server on a different continent. However I still need them on my new baby computer my new Emachine, so my 16gig flash storage will have a mission. There is one thing to remember though I remember somebody saying if you don’t dismount/unload you media properly then you lose what’s on the flash media. Well I’ll find out about that soon enough, Wednesday will be my security day.

Then once everything is safely loaded I can breath a sigh of relief. But what else do you have to do once you have your new baby, your new computer. Get connected to the Internet, without being swamped by viruses because you forgot to get an anti virus program. Set up accounts on the computer, I have my side and my wife has her side. With a Shanghai wife though I get stray Chinese characters appearing on our current computer, and strange things have happened. So I need to keep a clear head while I get things as I want them to be, however give it a fortnight and China will have invaded my side of the computer and stolen all the duvet. I still dream of  having my books in Waterstones and sold as Ebooks for all these new devices, but most of all I want a computer just for me!

 

From A to B From Sat Nav to Blocked Sink

Well I hope you are all fine this morning. For us the Sat Nav debate continues.

In the old days a Black Taxi would not be seen using an AtoZ, it was beneath his dignity. He'd done the Knowledge and it was all up there in his head. Jack Rozenthal wrote a great play about it, was it 30years ago? Maureen Lipman was his real wife.

Delivery drivers have and egg and bacon butty in one hand dripping egg on to the AtoZ in their other hand while they try and deliver a chest of drawers, with 5 days growth of beard for good measure.

Bus drivers know their route, so once they've done it a while its automatic, they know what they  are doing. All they have to do is put up with kids trying to use a 3 day old ticket, and not get too high from all the cannabis on the bus. Or remember when they have switched routes because that can lead to strange directions.

Door to door salesmen all those years ago, with the rap at tat tat on the back door had their route carrying the suitcase with samples in. I can vaguely remember one at our back door did my mum buy a clothes brush? But that must be 45 years ago.

So basically we all know what we want and where we are going. Going further back  they say people only knew a six block radius around their home. Going to War changed all that as  did radio and then more importantly tv. Tv being our eyes on the world, previous to that only Merchant Seaman knew of the world. My own granddad was a merchant seaman, I sometimes wonder did he ever get to Shanghai

Or was it me, his grandson who got there first. Had he visited at the turn of the 19th/20th Century 100years and more ago.

Which brings us back to Sat Nav. Me I use a bus which is fine apart from the pot heads who sit next to you on the bus and all I want to do is puke. My wife is a car driver, so she and our girls love the car. But my wife has borrowed a Sat Nav and likes the ease of it so now she wants one of her own. The result is that I’m being nagged to provide one. You pay, me pay, yes you pay, why me pay, because you are the husband so you pay, no way me pay, you pay you pay yourself, I say. And on the ding dong, sing song goes. Which is the fun part. Me I no pay, use computer I say. You can get perfect directions off the computer all you then have to do is print them off, if our printer was still working we’d be doing that. So really all the wife has to do is copy them down, in English.

She’s  busy with the wok as I talk to you, she’s compromised now, she only wants me to pay half. So I say I’ll be doubly generous and double the share I won’t pay, I’ll pay zero and she can pay 100%. That’s the true spirit of negotiation, now I have another thing to resolve, she’s blocked the sink, so pardon me now as I take the plunge, or rather take the plunger to the sink, no need to use a Sat Nav to get there, its over my shoulder in the next room, just turn left at the tv and go straight on to the sound of bubbles. Love is everywhere don’t you know it, just find it, no Sat Nav required.

Read My Mind

Read My Mind ©

By

Michael Casey

I just read in the Sunday paper that soon they’ll be able to read my mind, everybody’s mind. A computer firm is scanning brains so that in future you can control your computer with just a thought.

“Where do you do to my lovely when you’re alone and in your bed, tell me the thoughts that surround you” as Peter Sarstead sung in the old and very good song.*

Now the song was a great song, perhaps they’ll play it on Magic again soon.
But our thoughts are private like the sunglasses of our mind. They ring fence our brain and keep strangers out, they hide our boredom when at Company events, the same speech and the same director laughing at his own jokes while as one we all think “what a plonker”. A whole hall wishing he’d stop so we could get on with the entertainment, free bar and circus.

Politicians lie, we all think they do, and if we could read their minds we’d all throw cabbages at them, or eggs or just manifestos. We heard what Gordon really though of that lady and it helped lose the Election for him. Then the apology shambles, you cann’t take back something like that. If somebody could read Gordon’s mind they would have dived in to save him before he even said it. Politicians need to be clear but they never are. Why have clarity when you can have deniability. Let’s just wish Gordon a good relaxing next 5 years.

But what of you and what of me. You see a girl, you see a boy, you’ve got your shades on, you take a good hard look, the object of your attention cannot see your eyes, you try and look cool and not move your head an inch. But you lust after him, you lust after her. Choose your own words as to what you are thinking, or are you lusting. Well they’ll never know because they cannot read your mind. But  if they could, they’d be a few slapped faces that’s  for sure. Or they’d be a few sudden    snogs in doorways and in bus shelters or on the top decks of buses. And all because we can read each other’s minds. Perhaps in the future the gismo to read minds would be attached to your shades, so you’d look cool while they drool.

What about your mum if she could read your mind? She’d be sending you to bed without supper, she’d scream and shout “get out of my house.”
What about old gran and granddad, they’d know what you really think of them. Do you love them or are you just playing along to get their money when they die.
Reading Minds is a dangerous thing, we need protection from ourselves, a stray  spoken word can hurt, but luckily our words are locked up in our minds and they can be chosen and picked and used with caution. But if they were there all naked in front of us, no nuances, no clarification then we’d all be in big trouble. I believe we think
 4 times faster than we speak, but speech is our filter so that we DO pick the right words, we don’t say the wrong thing. Reading Minds can be dangerous, yes it would be great if you could walk down the road and have all the girls dreaming of you, but what if you were walking down the road and you could heard everybody’s  inner voice saying I hate you. What You Don’t Know Cann’t Hurt You, so as far as I’m concerned I’ll Fortune Telling  to Gypsies.

*Peter Sarstead Copyright.

Good Will Hunting Again

I just watched Good Will Hunting on tv, I'd seen it before. I do in fact have a few cousins in Boston, one is a cop. 

Anyways this time it got me thinking about my grammar school days back in 1970. WE had one lad who was just like the star of Good Will Hunting, his name was RP he had brains to burn as they say in Ireland. Unfortunately he had a deformed back, Esmerelda and the bells were no doubt said by us, though I never actually remember hearing it. RP was especially great at Maths and Sciences, years later at a school reunion, thanks to physio he was alright. He was writing computer games somewhere. God Bless him I say now and I said then.

All this brings to mind just how great God and genetics really is. As I've mentioned in other blogs things can run in families, maths or music or painting or writing, good looks or lack of them. Then every now and then Nature can play a binder. Look at the Mozarts of the world. Remember the film Amedeus, I can remember looking back and seeing 2 people crying in the audience at the old Futurist cinema in Birmingham. So why are these geniuses thrown up. Is it  God saying, just when you lot thought you knew everything I throw a googlie or a curve ball, or whatever sporting metaphor you care to choose, or does God bend it like Beckham.

I think it is for a reason. Perhaps to make us Mankind humble, to make us realise we don't really know much after all, we may have jumped of the 3rd rock from the sun and had a day trip to the moon, but really we are all still chimps banging two rocks together to make a fire.

Great Art, such as the Cistine Chapel the very sparks of Creation and of Intelligence now this  does show us many things. A cow grazing  on green green grass, giving us milk which really is a great invention,now that's something we all overlook.

Life really is a great invention, junkies think they see great things when they shoot up, but I'm sure God can take their hand and lead them to a beautiful garden and from there they can see the movement of the spheres, see planets form and reform, see erupting super novas. All of God's creation, then finally we are all shown a mirror and we see ourselves, our so small selves. It is only be having Mozarts that we can aspire to be better than being chimps on a rock hurdling though space and time. Can you hear the music? 

My Daddy's like Google he knows everything

My Daddy’s like Google he knows everything ©

By Michael Casey

My kids were in London today for a day out  with my wife and one of her friends. Me I stayed home I’d picked up some bug last night , so I nursed my bug.

The girls were all excited when they came home and my smallest one was telling a story. It began with a box fell from the sky, but it was no ordinary box, it was a magic box.  So I told her to keep the idea in her head and she could write it out in the morning, it was late now. Her bigger sister observed that when she wrote she wrote all posh, but when she talked she did not. I then tried to explain the difference between :- speaking, writing, presenting, teaching. Some people may be able to do one but this does not prove/equate to being able to do another. Then my smallest let loose with the line that I was Google and should be a teacher and that I should write kids books. I’ll do anything IF somebody sponsors me, or becomes my patron, though in my case it would be Saint Rita or Saint Jude themselves who’d help. Thinking back to 1969 I did win a Junior Free Handwriting Competition, I have the certificate somewhere, Brook Bond sponsored it, I’d forgotten about it till just now.

Daddy, any daddy has to try and be an encyclopaedia to give his kids some information, in some SciFi film  or it may have been in Dr Who I saw a battered Robot became the teacher, with holograms too. If only I could be some sort of magician, then that would be swell as the Americans say, card tricks with lessons on, slight of hand passing messages of learning. I am award that I have to try hard and give good information out, otherwise 1984 becomes a reality, rubbish becomes fact, and facts become rubbish. There are more questions than answers, luckily I’m very eclectic so I can give a base camp answer, then watch as their minds click and you can see from their expression, from the look in their eyes that they understand and they can begin to work things out for themselves or just have a look online.  The main thing though is that Daddy, this daddy, me, encourages his girls to use their brains.
The cobwebs may grow IF I didn’t have children asking this and asking that. In a couple of years time my biggest daughter can read my book, it’s a 12 certificate so although she’s seen it she’ll just have to wait for the dubious honour of reading daddy’s The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker.

Where do the tears go when they are shed?

Where do the tears go when they are shed ©
By
Michael Casey

Where do the tears go when they are shed
While I lie here crying on my bed
Do the tears drip drip away and seep though
The  floorboards and head for the sea.
Do my tears join an ocean that rises and falls
Do the tears yell and scream but only sea farers
Hear them, do whales moan as they crash through them
Only whales know of my distress as my tears groan
In deep deep oceans in the unknown dark deep seas.

Do my tears head north to the North Pole and Santa
Does Santa Ho Ho Ho so much because he is trying to drown out
The cries and sobs and tears held back for so many years.
Do tears form ice shelves and become icebergs, silent and majestic
Like giant cathedrals of ice. Is this the way to silent the voice of tears.
Frozen in Time for 100s of years, the fears of today and yesterday are merged
As one, gagged for eternity in an ice cathedral.
Will everything be forgot, deep freezed, quick frozen like garden peas.

Do my tears evaporate and head for the sky, joining the clouds as they pass by.
Are my tears blown this way and that, are they taken far away over the ocean.
As planes pass through the clouds that are my tears, can the passengers hear
Can the passengers hear my tears, all my hopes and fears, or are my tears
Drowned out by the in flight movie, 007 killing my prayers to heaven.

Do my tears wash away my pain, my guilt, are they like mothers’ milk?
For tears touch us all, they are like a morning mist that shrouds us.
For tears are the dark dark night of the soul, a cold coat that covers us.
In the morning we remember we fell asleep crying, but what of now?
Now we’ve looked at our dead mum’s photo and think of what she would have said.
We smile as we remember, her fight, her love, her spirit, her smile.
But never tears, she shed no tears for us, she shed no tears for us.
Tears will come, tears will come again, but they are just water, we are stronger
Than mere water, we have a boat and that boat is Love.

p.s. I stumbled over this poem on my PC so  I hope you like it. We were at a wedding a few weeks ago, that's us in the photos

Its Just Got to be Winnie The Pooh

Its Just Got to be Winnie The Pooh. My youngest daughter just loves Winnie The Pooh, my wife thinks its because I look like Winnie The Pooh, judge for yourselves.

We have a collection of soft toys tidied away behind the settee, about 40 I think. Every now and then my small daughter lines them up in rows and she's the teacher. Winnie The Pooh is always 1st in the queue. Then she takes the register and tells the toys to pay attention. Then she reads to them, everything is done in an orderly way. I think she'll end up a scientist as she's so organised, my wife did Science back in Shanghai, so its in the genes. Her Chinese grandfather did a bit of writing too, as did her Chinese great uncle, and then there is me www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com , so writing is in the blood too. Does anybody remember Abbott the Physics text book? That just sprung to mind, we were told to read it cover to cover, my brother actually did do that.

So back to Winnie The Pooh, I'm being told that she wants a Winnie The Pooh lunchbox, she just saw it in the Netto leaflet that came through our door. Then another leaflet had a Winnie The Pooh duvet and duvet cover. I did buy her a Winnie The Pooh blow up cushion but that delevoped a slow leak, so I stuffed Winnie the Pooh with a few old pillows, and she was able to continue sitting on it. We have Winnie The Pooh dvds and some old VHS tapes too, and a few days ago we bought her a Winnie The Pooh cutlery set along with a face cloth. So thats just the tip of a big iceberg, she has a white Tigger thats not really Tigger but he does look like a very very pale snow Tigger. When she grows up we will tease her about this. But I know one day a chubby cuddly man will ask my permission to marry her, perhaps his name will be Christopher Robin.