It's a cool and rainy day - very overcast, moist and conducive to reflective thinking. In the background an endless loop of Hard Rock classics is playing on satellite TV. I dug out my flute and fluted up a storm in accompaniment while dancing around the lounge - Hendrix, Cream, Springsteen, Foreigner and now the Doors (excuse me while I go back to the lounge)....
Ahhh that was good ... Love me two times ....
Of course I should be working but I have been putting in some solid late nights recently so I feel a bit reckless. I have written a fairly complex application in Access and I have been pursuading it to run as a scheduled task on my server and convincing the server that it can be trusted. I have worked out that at least two-thirds (ahhhh Cream .... Crossroads.....excuse me a sec) ...phew ...breathless now. Yes two-thirds of programming time is scratching one's head and figuring out why the cursed thing didn't behave the way it should. So one forms habits of adaptive behaviour - try a bit of this and a bit of that. In the end one learns to defeat the system with sheer persistence not much real understanding.
To get back to the topic I never started properly. The good part about getting older (I am 57 now) is that life becomes sweeter. I am learning new skills all the time. I am a bit sceptical about learning new software skills although I am plunging straight into Visual Studio 2008. In the last 30 years I have been learning cutting edge programming stuff only to see it superceded in a year or two. Fortunately there is some sort of transference - programming logic sinks into an instinct.
Other skills like music and art are a never ending delight. The real beauty is that I don't feel beholden to please any critic - I play music at my level and enjoy it. I paint at my level and enjoy it. If I do have a regret it is that I didn't start sooner.
I find that I am really enjoying memories of my past - trivial and momentous they are all equally important to me. Some of them were painful, some joyful - I have been remembering, savouring, perhaps shedding a few tears, giving my past self a nod. "Well done - good job .... I might have done that differently - but I wasn't there ..."
Ahhh that was good ... Love me two times ....
Of course I should be working but I have been putting in some solid late nights recently so I feel a bit reckless. I have written a fairly complex application in Access and I have been pursuading it to run as a scheduled task on my server and convincing the server that it can be trusted. I have worked out that at least two-thirds (ahhhh Cream .... Crossroads.....excuse me a sec) ...phew ...breathless now. Yes two-thirds of programming time is scratching one's head and figuring out why the cursed thing didn't behave the way it should. So one forms habits of adaptive behaviour - try a bit of this and a bit of that. In the end one learns to defeat the system with sheer persistence not much real understanding.
To get back to the topic I never started properly. The good part about getting older (I am 57 now) is that life becomes sweeter. I am learning new skills all the time. I am a bit sceptical about learning new software skills although I am plunging straight into Visual Studio 2008. In the last 30 years I have been learning cutting edge programming stuff only to see it superceded in a year or two. Fortunately there is some sort of transference - programming logic sinks into an instinct.
Other skills like music and art are a never ending delight. The real beauty is that I don't feel beholden to please any critic - I play music at my level and enjoy it. I paint at my level and enjoy it. If I do have a regret it is that I didn't start sooner.
I find that I am really enjoying memories of my past - trivial and momentous they are all equally important to me. Some of them were painful, some joyful - I have been remembering, savouring, perhaps shedding a few tears, giving my past self a nod. "Well done - good job .... I might have done that differently - but I wasn't there ..."
PS I decided to add a recent painting. It does depict a naked woman with a naked skull so I hope it doesn't offend anyone's sensibilities on either count. It represents the Goddess of Life contemplating the DNA strands she is creating. Her skull is to remind us that life on this plane automatically brings death.
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