Time to grow up

Today, I am an adult.

There are no real ways in todays society to declare when an individual stops being a child and is considered an adult by the rest of the community.

It used to be that there would be a ceremony or an achievement or even just getting married. But in todays society even getting married does not mean that a person is an adult. But these days, we as a society spend less effort on teaching and raising kids and providing milestones for them to achieve.

Today, I finally got around to selling my LEGO® collection.

It might not sound like much, but it broke my heart to do it. It had been sitting in five or six boxes, packed away since we moved from the old place to this place ... over two years ago. There is a bunch of stuff I wanted to build but never got around to. There was a lot, stuff going back to the 80's and some new sets. Even some catalogues from the 90's. There was even a bunch of bits that were new and still in bags! I don't know how long it had been that I hadn't played with them at the old place either. And it does not seem that I was going to use them anytime soon either.

So I decided it was time to man up and get rid of it. Better that some new young person play with them rather than them sitting in boxes unloved. I sold the lot to a friend for a couple of bucks. I could have gotten more on the open market but I didn't want to go through the hassle of selling over the internet. Like removing a bandaid - pull it off quick rather than drag it out.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11 They knew it then, it still applies now.

I know I'll regret this at some stage, but it is time to move on. I hope the new youths who receive them play with them and love them as much as I did...

At a crossroads

I have an offer in hand. Not sure about all the variables, but need to make a careful consideration. Conditions and pay seem okay, but not in a market I'm comfortable. Not sure which way to go, but options aren't coming in too hot or fast. On the plus side - no dealing with the public! On the downside... need to be discrete.

Not time poor ... just need discipline

It is a common complaint that almost everybody makes at some time or another - I haven't got enough time.

Be it for family, creative endeavours, the cat or whatever - at some stage there will come a time when 24 hours just does not cut it.

In my case it is for writing. However, my biggest problem (as I have identified it) isn't that I don't have enough time. It's that I have poor time management and don't have the discipline to focus on what I want to do when I have the time.

I'm hoping that by getting myself making more updates to this blog (even though I don't have much of interest to say) I'll be able to get more into the habit of writing. I'm aiming for every day, though I've already missed one day - and I'm only three days into it. Though having said that, there's no reason why I couldn't update twice in one day. Assuming I actually had something to say!

Ideas are the start...

...not the end!

At the moment I am trying to do a bit more writing. Annoyingly - every time I sit down to get something written down, I just end up dawdling and doing other things. The problem I have is that I want the results without putting in the effort. And the is not how it works!

Today I wanted to get a bit of writing done. I got as far as setting up a few folders (nothing in them) and then I had to duck out and do the shopping. Then set up the new set top box. Then move a bunch of stuff around. Then do a spot of cleaning. Gah!

I just keep putting things off, for no good reason.

There's a reason why my so-called writing site hasn't been updated in over a year. And it's all me baby. I can't blame anyone else other than me. So I either need to knuckle down or throw it overboard and stop attempting to write...

Waning days of August

Well, another month is on the way out.

Have several projects on the backburner, but nothing front and center ready to go. I need to get a leg on and make things happen!

The Temple at Gobekli Tepe

In Turkey, there is an empty, uninhabited region overlooked by a ridge of mountains. On a hill at the base of those mountains is a temple unique in human history.

Gobekli Tepe is a series of temples, built on top of each other over time. The oldest layer of temples is more than 11,000 years old. Do you understand how old that is?

That's not just seven thousand years older than the Pyramids. Five thousand years older than the first cities in the fertile crescent. It's a thousand years before agriculture. The builders were nomads, living off of herds and foraging.

It's before writing. So the whole thing was built by people whose knowledge had to be learned entirely in their lifetime and committed to memory. Can you imagine building a house with a group of people, when there aren't any diagrams or written instructions on length or weight? And the project took more than just your lifetimes? (Okay, maybe there were measured lengths of rope or something, but still.)

So it existed almost alone on Earth, with no large permanent human settlements. Not in the middle of a city, or even near one, or at a time when our concept of "cities" even existed. There are barely signs that people even lived at the site. It indicates humans who used it lived in nomadic villages nearby and it stood mostly empty. It was unimaginably unique at the time.

We only think it was a temple because it was full of larger-than-life statues of humans and dozens of different animals. The concept of a bigger-than-life statue indicates respect and reverence, when it was believed that humans weren't sophisticated enough at the time to see themselves as gods, or worthy of worship.

We know that Gobekli Tepe was in continuous use for more than three thousand years, and then buried. Not in an avalanche, not in a fire or storm. By hand. The entire f**king complex was buried by hand. We know from the striations of earth that it was carried in from the land around and dumped. And it wasn't destroyed first, the building was intact.

Only 5% has been excavated. It's been picked at for decades because of competing claims on archeological rights. Who knows what else is in there.

Super8

It's a blend between Cloverfield and ET... not surprising considering it was made by JJ Abrahams and Steven Speilberg.

Not liking it...