Year: 2018

I finished off book 6 last night ! And then promptly bought and started another one.

The finished off book was Freedom’s Landing by Anne McCaffrey who is much better known for the excellent Dragonriders of Pern series.

What did I think ? It could be a sign of continuing inward downward feelings but … meh. You expect a book to have a beginning, middle and end. Even the books in the Dragonriders series that ran straight into another book had a beginning, middle and end. So too for the excellent Talents books. A book needs a beginning, middle and end.

This one had a beginning … a second beginning … more expansion on the beginning and … eventually a bit of middle. I didn’t detect a proper ending. This one is the first in a series of 4 and I’m not convinced that I’ll acquire the other 3. But …. what’s it about ?

Our central character is abducted along with an alien Catteni and dropped, along with about 500 others onto a mysterious planet. It looks benign. Tame even. As the story unfolds, we learn it is a farm planet for unidentified aliens. I’m sure those would come out more in the next books. (I have cheated and read the synopsises on … that place online wot doesn’t pay its taxes). This apparently benign planet has its dangers, which our main characters steadily find out about.

It’s more about the limited interplay between the characters plus a light examination of the prejudices between people who are different and prejudices that are introduced by people who are just … arseholes.

It’s not nearly in the same league as those Dragonriders of Pern books that I grew up with … but those were exceptional books from a hugely talented author. Perhaps the plan behind the book was what went wrong with this one. I don’t think I’ll be getting any more books in the Freedom’s Landing series but it has made me want to re-read some of those books from long ago again. Like Restoree, like the Crystal Singer series (that had the word “unprintable” all the way through in a hamfisted effort of censorship of rude words !), like the excellent and always interesting Talents series. And the Planet Pirates series with Sassinak that drew my attention to Elizabeth Moon, who will get at least one entry in this series of 52 books.

The next book is the 4th in The Expanse series. An interesting start already. I must dive into more !

Discovery ?

This had a somewhat rocky start and is rather different to most Star Trek series. It’s harder, grittier, befitting a series set in desperate war time against the most formidable enemy the Federation has come up against.

Discovery is following a definite series arc but it’s doing that through episodes that lead you in gently at the beginning, that develop their story in the middle and give you a very definite “OMG WTH !” feeling at the ending as they pull out yet another surprise on you that you think you should have seen coming as the middle of the episode develops but is unveiled with a certain style and panache.

Not so much with the pre Xmas first half of the arc but this second half of the series has been exceptional throughout. I continue to watch with much curiosity. I want to see how they (spoilers redacted) … finish it off.

Well worth signing up to the Netflixes for. I think I’ll be binge rewatching it when the series is fully finished. It’s not Trek. It’s War-Trek. And they’re doing a hell of a job with it.

Haha, just like what the people bringing the Expanse novels to the screen are managing to do !

I was going to write about how I stay sane …

But then Stellaris happened … And that’s one of those games that’s really good at grabbing the attention. Anyway, one of those ways of keeping myself sane is to build things …

What’s the latest construction to arrive ? I did a teaser picture the other day …

That has just enough information to tell you what it is (if you take the 42074 code over to the lego websites).

As always, click for bigger. These are pictures transferred straight from the phone again, so there’s lots more pixels to look at. Just don’t mind the dust on my couch !

Every ship build starts with a central point. A keel. It’s typically the bottom centre of the boat, although modern ship building techniques are usually more about module builds, where they put together the ship in big blocks and then weld the blocks together. There are a number of fascinating videos about building modern warships and ocean liners, I’d thoroughly recommend them if you’re interested in the engineering behind the ships.

The aft section comes in to encase the rudder.

Ocean racing yachts tend to be dual control machines, where the rudder is controlled from either side of the boat. That’s to make sure the weight distribution is right. The wind tries to push the boat over, the sailors all try and be on the other side to balance the forces from the wind.

I think my helper is wanting me to photo him like those French Dragon Ladies he’s heard about. I must be more careful with that internet search history.

The central hull starts coming together. We’ll come back to the mechanism in the centre.

And 4D the dragon helps us take a better look at the almost complete bow. The odd looking Lego thing hanging off the front actually recesses back in to the hull when the yacht is complete.

The hull of the yacht is all complete now, with the bow area enclosed. That’s where the sails go on a real racing yacht, with the sailors sleeping around the sails.

Hmm. 4D looks like he has designs on that yacht in the same way as a sea monster Kraken would. He must be seeing things in that internet history again.

And the completed yacht with her sails !!!

I quite enjoyed this build. Lego can be very cathartic to play with as it starts from totally unconnected bricks and gradually unveils its mystery of what’s coming together. For a technic kit, this one was quite simple with just a few moving parts but it’s still one of the better kits. Most Lego Technic tends to be cars and trucks which for me are : Seen one, seen all of them. The yacht is something a little different.

Let’s have a look from another angle :

4D helping out again.

The boom of the mainsail moves (the mechanism from earlier) and the yacht has a working rudder. It’s lovely to see and touch the moving parts and how they intricately interplay with each other.

A simpler kit but that’s ok. I had as much enjoyment out of seeing this one come together as some of the bigger kits. What’s next ? Could be another car … Maybe.

Until the next kit !

Haha, could be this one, rebuilt as the catamaran double hull yacht.

It probably won’t surprise people that I’m being affected by the sad feelings at the moment.

I’ve ended up having a generally positive disposition. I’ll look for the humour wherever I can and I’ll dedicate time into and distract myself into making things that I hope make people laugh.

Because seeing people happy makes me happy, especially when they’re happy due to something I’ve come up with.

But yeah, behind that public happy laughing smiling face there is the melancholy feeling. I know that it will pass but I also know that the catalyst for helping to make it pass is likely to be other people.

I feel I’m lucky to have a little nucleus of people that I can open up to, who I can make laugh, who give me excuses to unleash that latent creativity, people I can trust. And I try and return that by cheering other people up.

That’s one thing about depression, when it hits it is very difficult for the person suffering from it to find how to climb out of that pit. It manifests in me by reduced energy levels, which make me cold. I also tense up which sparks off all those old injuries. And the pain that results from the injuries waking up again further tugs on my mental state.

I am in general ok. I’m not one of the unfortunate people who’s depression comes from brain chemistry that, for want of a better description, is out to get them and which needs rebalancing via drugs that cause other problems through side effects. My depression tends to come from events, or me not wanting to do stuff that I really actually do need to do. I’d much prefer to play the games or watch the videos than, say, clean the house and make it suitable for visitors. Yet there are people who I’d like to have the house in a state suitable for visiting.

(I actually just spotted a message come in from one of those lovely friend people and happily replying to that has made me forget my thread here !)

Games are one method of covering? for the depression. I can hide in a good book or a good game as it transfers my sphere of concentration away from what’s making me sad.

I do like to make jokes for people, although my humour is very reactive humour. I can never remember the old set piece type jokes but I’ll pick up on what people have been saying or doing, recognise something funny in it and use the photo editing tools to create something to hopefully make them laugh or try and bring out a chuckle through words.

I hope you all have people to make you laugh, or to help you turn the unhappy feels around into that little smile that signifies things are going right in your world again.

My melancholy will start to lift soon. There are things on my mind which will be on there for at least the next week or so. Plus I’ll be thinking of my mum and hoping she’s ok. (And the sister!) We’ve lost too much of our family over the last few years, hopefully we don’t lose any more soon !

That said, I’m not planning on disappearing off the face of the earth and my outsides are actually finally normalising. My sister’s a fireball and my mum’s a legend. We’re a tough mob, although we’ve lost too many of us too early.

I’ll definitely miss my nan, my dad and the old Ben-Pup (pets are family too). But I’ll lean back on those good memories.

I hope that if you have lost people too, you can lean on those old memories as well. They may not be with us physically but we hold them with us in our memories.

Remember.

And I just got a chuckling response from the HeyChrissa streamer lady from one of my random comments which brightened my evening.

That’ll be my closing words for today – stay away from the general public for sure if you have to, they can be very mean. But those special people, stay engaged with them. If you think they’re special, then that means you trust them to help you out when you need it.

Reach out if you need to.

I'm so sorry Pete. Sometimes life just sucks 🙁 Am thinking of you today.

Thanks Thumper. It would be good to be able to live fit and healthy forever though 🙂

Aw, man. I am so sorry…I hate this part of being an adult, I really do.

Thanks CK !

I'm sorry to hear that. My SERIOUS condolences!

Gosh this one’s going to be a tough post to write but let’s start with a picture.

My dad passed away yesterday. I wasn’t there but mum said it was peaceful and without pain.

But this isn’t about the end, it’s about the 75 years up to that point. This will only have a little bit about how good a dad I had but I hope it paints some of that picture.

Before you ask, I’m ok. The family’s holding things together, as is our way. You have to keep on functioning, despite what you might be feeling. And that’s what we do. (Although we will go to bits when we need to and in my case, writing has always been a better way to express my feelings than anything that goes from brain to gob).

I’ve been very lucky with my parents. They’ve always supported me, my sister and my brother when he was still with us. Pretty much everything they did was to support us kids.

What did he get up to ?

He pointed the way for me to get into the cricket. He hadn’t played for a long time before I did but supported me all the way. As he did with my sister and her horse riding. He gave me my first start at work, which prepared me for going into full time work. (And it was very handy for giving me a cash injection too !).

They bought our first cars and supported us kids into getting our independence. Not as a pushing us out the door kind of independence, we were always welcome and encouraged to come back to stay. There is always a place for us to crash there. In fact, this actually extended to allowing one of my ex girlfriends (this was uni) to stay there rather longer than she ought after that incident when I rescued said ex from what could have ended up being a nasty domestic violence incident.

He was a very keen gardener (and there were very many tasty veggies coming out of that garden too !). He built a house for us in Northern Ireland. Not many people can claim to have done that ! Things were a struggle for the family quite a few times but we kids were insulated from that by remarkable parents … but not so much that we weren’t able to deal with hardship when it presented itself later.

He taught me that if you read up on how to do things, you can do anything.

Outside of what was gifted us through our genes, we’ve never been that lucky as a family. But through the inspiration of people like my mum and dad, we’ve hopefully come out ok. But that’s for you all reading out there to judge.

There’s more, like the couple of trips to Wembley to see Rotherham play plus that day when Rotherham played Swansea and the referee incited a pitch invasion. I enjoyed getting out to see Yorkshire play cricket at various grounds too. Cos that was time with my dad, which was always precious.

Proud of him … and my mum, sister, brother while he was with us. Everything he touched had its own little bit of awesome with it.

Best dad ever. I’ll miss him.

Before I head into what’ll be a rather short book review, I better say where I’ve been for the past few days … (If you want to see the short book review and skip what could be hard to read, skip to the Lego Death Star).

I’m going to mysteriously disappear again quite soon and it’s due to the family situation I’ve been alluding to over the last few weeks. My dad is very ill and we’re not expecting him to be with us for too much longer.

He’s had a few small strokes lately and the bugs that have been going around have probably been too much for him. They were tough enough for us semi-healthy people to cope with ! He was frail but mostly ok over an enjoyable Xmas but those bugs have hit everyone since then.

I’ve come back to Bristol for a few days now so I can do a little looking after of myself but I’ll be heading back to where the parents live quite soon I think. What’s happening has partially hit my emotional state but we’re a family of people who don’t let what’s troubling us appear to the outside world much. We keep it hidden from most of the world and let out the emotions in private.

He’s been hanging in there over the last few days but he is very ill and I don’t think he’ll be coming home as he’d like to. We just don’t know how much time he has left.

Seeing how he is has made it hit home. So if the following mini review of book is downbeat, my own emotional state will be contributing to that.

To the book !

The book was Rogue One : Catalyst, a companion book to the recent highly excellent Star Wars universe movie. It was penned by James Luceno who I believe is a staff writer writing Star Wars lore books.

If you’re into Star Wars lore like I used to be (before the Yuuzhan Vong New Jedi Order books soured it for me), then this is an essential book to read. It tells the story of some of the Rogue One characters, putting more flesh on the bones of what’s going on in the movie. It concentrates on Galen Erso, Orson Krennic and has a bit of Governor Tarkin there as well. It picks up around the time of Attack of the Clones and before Revenge of the Sith and goes up to perhaps a year or so before the start of Rogue One.

But it’s so drab and dreary …

The Rogue One movie is excellent, joining the latest two main movies as one of the best films I’ve seen.

This book though, unless you are interested in the lore behind the book is an …. AVOID. There are far better books to read, even the depressing Abaddon’s Gate was a far superior book. It does explain what it’s trying to tell you very well but … it’s probably too tied into the rest of the source material and that doesn’t give it the breathing space that would turn it into a compelling story in its own right. Or is that just limitations of the author.

But this could be my current state of mind dominating my feelings.

As always, look at what people say about books like this (I’ll be avoiding the Star Wars Aftermath books), borrow multiple opinions and then make your own mind up.