Strange dream

Just woke up it is 3.40 am and i had the strangest dream and i wanted to blog it, man this getting addictive to me, anyway the dream.

I was in a giant hotel and was with a woman, we were just out the shower and then something was said that upset me and i took a gun and went and shot a man in cold blood, this did not feel weird i had no emotion about this at this point. Then the woman came back and i told her what i had done, she slapped me and told me nobody messes with her boyfriend, she was then with somebody else in front of me so i shot him in the head as well.

I then spent the next part of the dream meeting senators and solicitors who were going to try and help me get off with it but i wanted to face the position i was in. Then i was out of the hotel in a silk dressing gown with a towel wrapped around me and i was running away with another girl, different girl, brunette the first girl was a blond, none of this felt weird to me.

Before leaving the hotel my Friends Mum is having a birthday party which is taking over the hotel there are guests i know mainly women walking about in dresses and carrying plates of buffet food and in the midst of this the impact of what i was doing starts to hit me. So many people telling me that they will help me if required and friends from school and before telling me not to worry and they will meet me in the pub later. There are many rooms including a poker table set up I also spent an awful lot of time hiding in my God Son's bedroom trying to not make too much noise so nobody would find me, but he wanted to play all the loudest games.

I then meet the families of the people I have shot and this is hard to bear but I know that i must face what i have done. then an older woman comes through the door and it is raining on her and she has a plastic wrap around her head to keep the rain off, as she un-does it i realise it is my Mum and i know i want to hug her, safest place in the world Mum's arms she will make it all okay, my mum is no longer here however this does not feel weird or throw me from the dream, my Mum tells me it will be alright i believe her but do not know how she can be correct. I then followed her through the hotel it was now 6am and they were preparing for breakfast and my Mum kept eating miniature cakes off of the platters that were being cleared away.

The girl with the towel got me to a dark alley street on a bend and a hill, thinking about it I think it is Dunfermline, Scotland. A convoy of vans come around the corner and stop and the sides open up and there are giant dancing puppets in the side of them and there is a song playing and they are dancing away. next thing my best friend in the world is coming around the corner at the head of a parade of cub scouts all hitting each other with rolled up posters and arm in arm I dance at the head of the parade with my friend, still technically guilty of double murder knowing i will be punished but now is not the time to worry about these things. We meet my Friend whose wife was having the party and he is like you cannot go through there it is a shopping mall which is closed but we say no and he runs ahead of us and loses his shoe.

Next we come out of the mall and i am alone it is early morning the streets are wet and I have the odd notion of a conversation of one of the managers at work leaving a message for somebody who he has failed to meet with saying that the money he has cannot be used for what she wants they usually reserve it for something ( he said a German name which has gone) but i got the feeling it was something regarding advertising on the back ground of films, in the sets. I then had the strangest memory of having been in that location before but could not identify if it was Glasgow or London and I started to panic but had the strangest feeling of de ja vu.

Nothing has made me not feel so correct in this dream until the end where I can see to the top of a building where Caprica Six and Sharron from BSG are having to escape, they have to connect to each other and roll down a human ladder and near the bottom they are caught and Sharron is stuck and the guy who caught her says something that he is allowed to do as he has caught her and hanging upside down she is helpless. Caprica Six hangs back I do not feel i am in the scene and this is when I realise i am on occupied Caprica and this then shows me it is weird and I wake up.

Morale, too much drink and BSG before bed, means even the worst dreams will go weird eventually, I woke up so convinced in what I had done in the beginning of the dream was real and i felt such guilt over it, one reason i could not murder or cheat on a girl friend, could not live with myself. Anyway here is the strange ramblings of my dream world, just felt a compulsion to write it down at 4 am for the world to read. This is the most detail i can remember about any dream and while it is very all over the place I did have the utmost feeling that it was all one story. If anybody has any thoughts on what it means, let me know.

Happy Easter everybody that reads this.

Geekdom

I have been pondering what to post in the last few days and I do not like doing reviews. Books I usually miss the obvious and films I either like or do not like. TV shows again are difficult especially half way through and then again I am either like or do not like. So a review....not likely, but I am currently enjoying BSG and enjoyed Madagascar 2 my reviews end.

I have recently realised I am a geek, or had it pointed out to me I am a nerd, unsure what is worse (or better). I have decided while I love Nerd Hurdles (check the podcast one of the best) that geek sounds better.

What is Geekdom, Geekiness or being a geek, until a few months or even weeks ago I would say a skinny guy with glasses (usually broken) with an interest in Computers. How wrong am I a Geek is somebody with an interest they take seriously and by seriously I mean to what others might consider extreme.

And why am I a geek? I take too many things too seriously I have my over large DVD collection Alphabetised and on a full and almost complete spreadsheet. I follow 151 people on twitter and listen to somewhere in the region of 30 pod casts and have 50 to listen to with over 1500 to catch up on. This is why I have been pointed out as a geek and i accept this.

Is there anything wrong with being a geek? I say of course not, our extremes are self contained we seek out like minded geeks and communicate and complain about the outside world but we have very few "real" friends (geeks will get that.) I say we keep to ourselves and in all honestly if we united and moved against the "normals" we would out number them. However too many Geeks do not recognise what they are. Come out we are here to be friendly to you (unless you are normal).

Anyway I think that everybody who reads this is probably a geek anyway (you are reading a Blog after all.) So preaching to the converted but please pass comment if you think the same or if I am totally wrong.

Speaking to you soon Andrew.

September 11th 2001

One of the most significant incidents to happen in modern history and one of only two events that i can honestly say that I remember exactly where I was when it happened, i had been on Night shift and woken up and put the TV on and the first tower was smoking watched it from there. The second event i Can place myself was the Dunblane Massacre it hit home mainly due to the fact that i live in Scotland and i was off during the day at that point working in the evenings.

i have to say at the time while I felt terrible for the people affected i have to be honest and say that it did not really affect me emotionally at the time. However I have since been to New York, (April 2008) and have to say that going to ground Zero was actually quite intense, they have the globe from the lobby in it's current state and you just wonder the hell that it must have been to have been there.

The reason I feel compelled to write something down was that last night i watched a documentary from the History channel called 102 Minutes That Changed America. It is un-narrated and is simply footage from that day, home footage and news films from all angles including the second explosion. All i can say that 8 years on i felt their fear for their lives and their loved ones. Also their admiration for the rescue services NYFD and NYPD and the ambulance services the work those guys and girls did in the cities time of need while must of felt like putting a sticking plaster on an amputated limb the fact that they continued to work to save those trapped and the injured and at the last to make sure that they got as many people away from the area at the end when the second tower came down.

I have to say that my respect for the resilience of the New york people is amazing and the only anger I have is that when you stop at ground zero they tell you not to buy pictures as they are simply hustlers trying to make a buck and it upsets me that people will try ans make money off of anything.

Anyway I just wanted to note that I have total respect for the survivors of 9/11 and the rescue service men and women that serve every day and if you get the chance it is a fantastic city to visit when given the opportunity.

Social Networking

What is social networking, too me it is meeting new people in a social situation, meeting people that you may speak to in the future. To me this makes me think, Pubs, Parties and through sports, either playing or watching. The media and majority of people seem to think that the only real way to socially network is online, through the Major sites, My Space, Face Book, Bebo, twitter and online Forums (Simply Syndicated FTW.)

Now I do not have a problem with these sites I actively twitter and have had all the other sites at one time or another and i have to be honest and say that I have met a lot of excellent people through twitter and Simply Syndicated. however the biggest problem i have with this id the fact that the media are pushing these as terrible things from one point of view and the greatest thing in another.

While the sites themselves used in moderation are a fantastic thing and should be used properly to get the most out of but they should not be used as the only way of meeting people or communicating with people.

I think that as long as it is not the only socialising you do then online social networking sites can be good for you, just remember what they were designed for and use them correctly.

On a final note and the main reason i only use twitter and online forums is the fact that the front pages become so overloaded with apps and you get bombarded with friend requests from people trying to build their friend levels, see who can have the most friends for no reason than the number and contact from ladies wanting your money. Also the fact that people follow or friend request so they can sell you something, what is the point if you have something i want i will find you or you can drop me a note and ask if i want to buy rather than just the random requests.

So in conclusion not for me on the grander scale but good for those that enjoy them.

2009

I decided because 2009 has sucked royally for me so far, so I want a quick review before I put it all behind me.

21/01/09 As previously posted my Mum passed away.
24/01/09 My friends gave birth to a baby girl Isla.
04/02/09 Our wee dog Staffa went to the vet and never came home, she was 15 but still a sad loss.
12/02/09 My sister found out that she had a miscarriage.

So there you go a 3 week spell of hell in our family.

A period of time like this in your life teaches you many things about yourselves and others.

Myself - I have discovered that mentally and emotionally I am strong, some might say hard but more like composed, I have adapted and while not happy with the situation have come to realise that you have to play the cards that life throws at you.

Friends - I always thought of my self as not popular but well liked, I have to say when you have a period of time like I have had you really get an understanding of how you are perceived by others around you. I have to say that I have been blown away by my friends and work colleagues, the cards the phone calls and the flowers are so touching and while they do not actually change anything, they do let you appreciate that people are thinking of you in your time of grief.

Anyway that is my year so far, I originally started this blog to talk about things and not so much about my family and what happened to us, but there you go.

So hopefully as I have ended this year by reviewing it, so happy 2010 everybody and here is hoping it is a better year.

Thank You

This is a note to thank everybody for their kind words and thoughts on the passing of my Mum.

To all those who commented on my Blog and passed their thoughts via twitter, the 120 cards we have received and the nearly 200 people that came to the funeral service. It is amazing the feeling when you see all of these people come to remember someone you love and to be with you in your time of grief.

The line up while hard, to stand there with people you know and don't know coming towards you and giving you their thoughts and yet if I had to do it again I would, it makes you appreciate however you feel about people or yourselves you very rarely really know how well you or others are regarded.

My Mum always worried she was misunderstood, she could not be bothered with fools and could be harsh when required but never nasty. Boyfriends and girlfriends of my sister and I never met her standards and they always seemed to dis-like her, but then what person can match the expectations of a mother for her children. But on Saturday she would have seen that she was well respected by friends, family and old work colleagues, she would have seen that all of her family were very well supported by their friends and old and current work colleagues. She will have seen that while she is gone her friends and family are not alone.

The last thing this has made me appreciate is that for others in their time of grief I am not as good as I could be, I will endeavour to be as supportive to others as they have been to me and my family.

Waiting....

People have said this before and I have to agree waiting for anything is horrible, usually the waiting is the worst, however in my position the waiting while bad, the actual event will be worse, the funeral of my Mum.

As per my previous post, the funeral still has to be confirmed, the waiting is hard, the body has not been realesed to the mortician therefore we cannot book the crematorium, without a date and time, we cannot book a hotel for the wake.

Also on a personal level the waiting for things to happen is stressful but honestly it will not be as bad as the day, whenever it arrives. As a family we feel in limbo not moving forward, not getting a chance for things to settle, just waiting....