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I met a ’stranger’ at a pub the other day. I was out walking and he, copious amounts of ‘claret’ running down the left hand side of his face, was evidently on bicycle transport. He had had quite a bingle and re-configured his left cheek quite substantially… I was quite concerned but he wasn’t it seemed…

A native ‘Newcastlian’ he now works in Brazil on heavy oil rig towing ships - 8 weeks on, 8 weeks off. He arrived in Heathrow the day before. We chatted for maybe an hour and a half. He was most definitely having ‘too good a time’ and had been hammering the whisky and pints most of the day apparently - it’s dry on the ship for the whole 8 week shift.

He’s still in love with his ex-wife even though that ended 14 years ago. He has two really interesting children - a 20 something boy who’s travelled and is a fully qualified sports instructor and a late teens daughter who I can’t remember what she’s up to exactly but she’s well on her path and it sounded pretty cool. He returns to the UK often and spends a lot of time with his kids.

In his early 20’s he lived on a beach in Crete for 12 months with a young Australian lady he had met - their life paths crossed, they spent a significant part of their youths together - and its the most cherished memory of his life.

He loves walking the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District and had headed straight for Norfolk for some peace and quiet and to catch up with various friends, in various places up this way, like Great Yarmouth, before heading north. He can wax lyrical about the beauty he sees in the landscapes, his love of life, and the people who are important to him.

A good meandering chat, touching on all sorts, and the surprise came when he asked me ‘whats it all about?… what does it all mean?’…

Now, for anyone who knows me much - amusement might be felt at this point - verging on breaking out into hysterical laughter. Generally these are not the type of questions one asks me unless you really have a few hours to spare - my own joke about this is - why use a few words when a couple of thousand might easily do :-)

What caught me off guard about this situation however was that I actually had something to say in answer…

He is an awesome human being, his life is awesome, even if he didn’t quite ‘get that’ yet. He can see beauty in nature and simplicity and every time he shares that with his friends he is giving a gift. He has two ’switched on kids’ and they spend ‘quality time together’ regularly - they are sharing with their father a relationship morphing into the mutual respect of adulthood rather than that of parent-child - they share this gift together. He travels the world and takes that in his stride. He’s a productive, qualified professional who is sought after in his field. He can afford to take time out to think through the meaning of life - and does…

He is awesome, “isn’t your life awesome?” - that was the nub of my answer…

What’s it all about?

What does it all mean?

It’s already awesome - you just have to catch the sun at the right angle, or pause for a moment at a flower you pass, or maybe find your right perspective…

Photo: ‘A Valentine’s Rose’, © dws21uk

Till the earth until we die…
War in the middle east today,
and,
I don’t know why.

Oxen strains plough shears through the sand…
Starving children in Africa today,
and…
I just don’t understand.

Patter the clay, new home,
brick by brick…
Money men killed another forest today,
and…
I feel sick.

Drought this year,
earth scorched bare…
More space junk in the sky today,
why…
don’t I care?

Stable the horses from the driving rain…
Youths murdered an old lady today…
I can’t describe…
The pain.

Sunsets golden,
another day goes by,
human kind kills itself…
With greed…
and,
sometimes I have to cry.

ShaunO, 1996, reprise, 2008.
Photo: ‘all the pain‘, 2006, Ali K.

Meditate…
with eyes wide open,
of, and in, your own truth.

Be in,
and regularly check,
the validity of,
your own reality.

You are real,
but you are only that,
nothing more, nothing less,
just more or less…
entwined…
inter-connected,
a child of universal success.

You are Loved…
Some say they Love you,
some demonstrate they Love you,
and some simply, actually, Love you…
None of these are the question.

Are you Love?

Learn…
in the hard ways,
and,
in the fast, and furious, and fun ways.
But always,
in your way…

Travel…

Meditate…
With your eyes wide open.

Step out briskly always
- but watch for passing cars…
And from the words of a bard…
Do one thing, that frightens you…
Everyday.

Realise…
Your own reality.

Explore…
uncompromisingly, your own truth.

Wide open?
Given yourself…
a vision test lately?

Love…
on the path of your own ’silver string’,
and with your entire being…
As often as you can.

Life is a long song.
The verses will unfold.
Don’t let them spill your pain,
all over,
your new dress…

Keep your meditative eye…
Wide open.

(and, trust me on the sunscreen…)
(maybe you’ll dance the ‘funky chicken’ on your 75th wedding anniversary…)

With thanks
for inspirations
drawn from:
Ian Anderson,
Baz Luhrmann,
Mary Schmich,
Bob Thurman, &
Kurt
(in no particular order).

Being amongst the last of a dying breed - a smoker…

I started a little group on Flickr - The Tobacconist - which is gathering a some momentum…

Some of the Tobacconist’s shop-fronts I have seen over the years are the most pleasant, interesting, amusing, or just well presented… and from a photo in the group interesting shops are still about - this one selling tobacco by weight from jars still - with such fine names as “Kentucky Nougat, Fire Dance, Sherlock Holmes, Old Oak, Sweet Blarney, Troost, and Parsons Pleasure…”.

The world-wide communities which are possible via these technologies - like Flickr - even though I’ve been around the Internet for near on 15 years - are a constant, pleasant, surprise to me…

Well, ‘bit the bullet’ and went ‘Pro‘ - big decision - £12 a year :P

Was trying to find out how to do those cute little comment replies - you know, replying to a specific persons comment quoting their buddy icon - like this.

Nothing simpler as it turns out:

• use Firefox (don’t tell me you still use IE… :-))
• install GreaseMonkey
• install Flickr Buddy Icon Reply

Goto flickr photo page and start using new options for replies…

Had a haircut today. Just what you needed to know hey?

Was looking a little like the ‘wild man from Borneo’. And regularly getting up and thinking ‘ooh… bad hair morning’… Of more concern was that one morning my Uncle Eric might not recognise me and call the police, or something worse…

It was lovely day in Norfolk today.

I decided to take my ‘SatNav’ on an outing for comic relief (a reference to my previous light hearted ramblings on ‘SatNag’). The intent - to have a ‘crack at’ finding my first geocache. I chose this one which seemed to promise no swimming, or climbing trees, or anything like that, and it’s only a few miles from where I am.

I like the byline on www.geocaching.com:

‘The sport where You are the search engine’

I have to confess I’m not sure about sport - but for the more lively of the practitioners I gather that some caches are placed in ridiculously difficult places - at which point I’m sure it would become sport - each to their own I always say…

Anyway, having negotiated somewhere to park the car (which is always a bit of a challenge in ‘outback’ Norfolk lanes) I started my hunt. And, of course, that’s about all I can say about that without ’spoiling’ the cache.

Suffice it to say I did find it, it took me much longer than it should have, and most surprising, I enjoyed the ‘hunt’. It’s a lovely spot too, which, frankly without going there to find the geocache I would have never seen. And its basically ‘just around the corner’.

Having found the cache I was feeling very ‘furtive’ as by then a groundsman had arrived to tend the graveyard and I had no idea what he must of thought I was doing traipsing around the place - casing the joint? :P

So I didn’t spent a lot of time going through the menagerie of bits’n'bobs in the ILLY coffee tin - I did the log, chose my ‘little ball and maze’ puzzle from the goodies and left behind an Australian 50 cent coin.

I learnt more acronyms today too. If someone ever reverse engineers my brain (whats left of it) I’m sure they will find I am just a walking glossary…

TNLN - Took Nothing, Left Nothing
TFTH - Thanks For The Hunt
TFTC - Thanks For The Cache

Oh, and on the ‘techie’ front, Garmin make a groovy web browser plug-in which means you can use web pages (or create your own) which can up/download data (waypoints and the like) directly to your ‘SatNav’ (which you have plugged in via USB) whilst you’re browsing your GPS savvy web-sites - like geocaching.com.

So, down 50 cents, up a ‘little ball and maze’ puzzle, seen another lovely little church in Norfolk, and a satisfactory, to good, time (practising my under-stated British) had by all :)

and… more web links than you ever wanted for St Michaels, Ryston:

• GENUKI information
• A General History of the county Norfolk (1829) - Google Books
• Cemetery Grave Monument Photographs
• Pictures of the stained glass windows (from CVMA)

You know you are Love.
You awake every day to a little sunshine…
Did you miss it?

Everything is beautiful,
if only you could see,
you have been Loved,
drenched in it…
all encompassing Love,
Did you miss it?

Too bad,
so sad,
you’ll pay the price…
for our own ignorance,
for our outstanding…
greed & stupidity…
but it didn’t have to be that way,
Did you miss it?

Everyday you asked your God,
where to today?
‘To Love’…
Did you miss it?
Get diverted into grey?
It didn’t have to be that way…

You could have “stepped up to the plate”…
To the realisation, to the truth, into your reality…
To your “God-head”,
into the day…
today, is the day,
for us to Love one another,
to care,
and be cared for…

To share,
and it’s today…
to share all that pain…
Did you miss it?

They are the same you know…
Today, Realisation, Truth, Pain, & Love…
Welcome aboard.

If your heart is exploding…
You are here…
here, with the rest of us…
Welcome.
Don’t miss it.

Step out…
onto the pain of your past,
and,
into the pleasure of your future,
welcome.

Welcome.
Did you miss it?
Did it pass you by?

Of course, I’ll never know…
Because it’s up to you.
Welcome…

Having only recently entered the world of in-car GPS navigation I have to say I’m reasonably impressed… and on a number of levels.

Firstly, having been the ‘uber-geek‘ in the past (and modest too…), I’m pleased that on this occasion that I haven’t had to contribute much to research and development in this particular area. You know how it goes… first in the ‘buy line’ and you pay £500 for something that is worth £100 in a few months/years time… i.e. you get to help fund the R&D releases… I am not going to admit how much I paid for my first CD player… oh ok, A$1000 :-)

With ‘SatNag’ (a great ‘language short’ for - SatNav - offered by a best mate) I’ve entered the frey pretty much on the “matur’ish end of the curve”, where, decent kit can be picked up for around £100…

And the whole, “you’re holding this thing in your hand which can figure out exactly where you are on the planet” thing.., is a little mind-bending actually.

And, of course, I’m not alone. As I work in other zones to explain something of my views on Internet influences & effects - I have not missed that a GPS r/evolution is happening… How ‘far out’ is Geo-Caching, or Geo-Tagging? The simplest version of GeoTagging being properly locating where your photos are taken when using Flickr… everything on the Internet “geotag’d”. Wow, THAT’S metadata :-)

Auto-routing has to be the most comical feature to be included in these devices though does’nt it? Already I’m finding that owning a ‘SatNag’ is going to provide immense amounts of comic relief in what might otherwise be stressful UK driving conditions. On the basis of 3 days experience my first piece of advice is to ensure you always have a *very* good *printed* map in the car… And better still, ensure you actually have the faintest clue about where you are going… ;)

I took my Uncle Eric out to lunch the other day at a favourite local pub - the Jenyns Arms - and you are not going to ‘drive by’ this pub… it’s hidden in deepest, darkest Norfolk :P

Anyway, on the way home, as a test - I have driven this road umpteen times - I let ‘SatNag’ work out where we were going - and for comedy followed obediently…

To surprise (particularly Eric’s) it took me up Sandy Lane - a two rut goat track through the back of nowhere (well, to be fair Denver) instead of along a perfectly service-able *paved* road through the centre of the village…

“‘SatNag’, better pack your wellies…” suggests best mate…

Today, having dutifully trawled all possibilities for said new ‘techo-gadget’ I find myself with all sorts of ‘Points of Interest’ (POIs) loaded to said device… If you’re on the hunt for such stuff PocketGPSWorld and GarminPOI aren’t bad places to start. But I digress…

So, says me (now GPS savvy, of course :-)), ‘nearest Castle’, and bundles into car and off I go to, apparently, Castle Rising. Meandering along ok, know roughly the area I’m in anyway so non-nonchalantly listening to ‘SatNags’ - “second exit on roundabout” etc - until I’m goat tracking again… Ok, comic relief…

Until I noticed that I’m now past the “Castle” - which frankly in Castle Rising’s case is pretty hard to miss - and ‘SatNag’ is chuffing me through town out to … where?…

Me, thinking quickly (I’m like that…), that *I’m* actually in control of the car, stops…
Checks ‘SatNag’ as far as where does ‘he/she’ *think* we are going…
Ah, problem, Point of Interest (POI) entry thinks we are going out into ‘the Wash‘ somewhere… helps if you actually give the SatNav the right GPS co-ords in the first place… Shaun presses ‘Stop’ and decides to self navigate…

“‘SatNag’… hope you were towing a boat for destination…” suggests best mate…

Gadgetz… Where am I?

Moral of the story…

Never know… ensure you have maps, wellies, and are towing a boat…
and… actually have the right data for where you are going…
and… “Are you prepared for a snow drift?” enquires best mate…

Never know… could end up anywhere with ‘SatNag’… :P

A ‘revolution’ is loosely defined (skimming over the variety of definitions quoted at Wikipedia) as action(s) which result in socio-political change. Or, less specifically, by Cambridge’s Advanced Learners Dictionary, as “a very important change in the way that people do things”…

An ‘evolution’ is, again loosely, generally agreed to mean change or process, often with an implication of ‘forward movement’ (e.g. in biological systems - becoming more complex). References for further exploration at wiktionary or wikipedia.

Out of interest a ‘volution’ is quoted (by Websters thru the Online Medical Dictionary) as having several meanings including: a spiral turn, or a wreath, or the whorl of a spiral shell - and apparently derived from the latin ‘volutio’. Not dissimilarly, both evolution and revolution have their roots in latin: the former from ‘evolutio‘ (an unrolling, unfolding), and the latter from ‘revolvere‘ (to revolve).

So my intent by using R:E:volution is combinational then. By definition - ‘a turn’, ‘a change’, and/or ‘a forward movement’. By inference - the subtlety of the implied ‘meanings’ of using words such as revolution and evolution in combination. By construct - the use of the colon in punctuation to point out that - “what follows clarifies, explains, or simply enumerates elements of what is referred to before”…

And the, on ‘the face of it’, wandering introduction, itself, serves to place the appropriate amount of emphasis on the uncertainty, the wonder, and the spirit of enquiry which my rhetorical, questioning, title presents. But I will be clear at the outset - I have no intention of answering ‘the question’ - only to research, propose, learn, and ask further questions by discussing it…

‘Onward…’ agreed the journeyman and the apprentice…

The Internet is certainly an evolution of technology. With more complexity, in some respects one might argue, than is possible with the evolution of biological systems. Whilst in biological evolution a view of an hierarchical tree can be drawn - it is unlikely you will see cross connection between the branches, in my understanding.

In technological evolution however the opposite seems to be true. Using the ‘parlance of our times’ - ‘technological convergence’ is a reasonable example. Much work over the last decades has taken place to enable computers to become TVs, stereos, radios and the like. We are all aware that many electrical devices we now own - which previously had some other controller system in them - are now, too, controlled by ‘embedded computers’. This is largely due to the cross-pollination of ‘the branches’ of modern technologies. This is also true in other fields of scientific endeavour apart from technology - but that would be too larger digression…

Often, with technology, entire branches get removed in favour of some superior, latterly arrived, technology. A simple example of this is the telephone - primarily designed as a circuit-switched system which has, by now in my estimation at its base, been almost entirely replaced by a later technology - packet-switching. This is a good example of this type of cross-pollination so let’s stay with it for a moment…

It is true that the original concept (in this case circuit-switching for telephones) is somehow ‘evolved’ to work in the new system. So, in that sense, the ‘old technology’, or ‘old concepts’ more accurately, are not supplanted - they are ‘kind of re-emulated’ in the new physical/electrical system. But, the old technology, in the sense of having to make a physical wire, circuit-switched connection, between two telephone handsets has entirely disappeared… removing the entire ‘original branch’ version of that technology begun by Antonio Meucci (exactly whom, is under constant dispute) and others in the 1800’s…

What we have today is largely a massively hybrid system of physical lines (in the minority), computers, sub-marine fibre cables, satellites, microwave links etc etc which packet-switch data all over the world - including millions of telephone calls. To be sure that is too simplistic a view. There will still be large amounts of infrastructure dedicated to telephony - this ensures its ‘quality of service’ which we have all come to expect - but my guess is the bulk of ‘the back-end’ is based on modern, computer controlled, packet-switched technology.

Ultimately its relatively easy to envisage that they (the millions/billions of phone calls) will just ‘merge’ as ‘yet more’ packet-switched ‘data’ into the ’single global network’ - which at this point doesn’t really exist - but, in any event is, in myth, currently called the the Internet.

Anybody who has experienced Voice Over the (real, todays…) Internet (VOIP) will attest to its imperfect nature… so, we are, at least, a little way from that ’single global converged network’… This is part, though, of the ‘natural’ technological evolution to which I allude. Ultimately there will not be a ‘phone system’, per se.

‘Telephonics’, as my dear Uncle Eric so precisely puts it, will be just another ’service’ on the future ‘global Internet’…

In this sense then, we are discussing technology evolution, a slow change, traceable from the 1800’s until now…

Until the next R:E:volution…

Photos:
‘Spiral‘ by Roger Smith.
‘Old Telephone‘ by Bergius.

In loving memory, for Tony… from his service…

Leonard Cohen songs…

Sisters of Mercy

lyrics and an amazing number of covers…

Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye

lyrics and, again, some nice covers…

Viva la Jersey! Viva la Holland!