Be Excellent To Each Other

The first in a series of talking about random shit.

Hindsight. Have you ever looked back at a choice you made and thought "Fuck me, that was a good choice!"? I'm not talking about some soppy shit like choosing to go in that bar at that time and meeting your future wife etc...

Things like one of mine, when I bought some car trim that I wanted to fit, but it was missing a slot for one of the buttons. Out came my trusty dremel so I could cut a small hole. Oh, hey! Look, there are my safety glasses, I wondered where they were, now i've found them I should probably use them I guess.
30 seconds later, and the cutting disk on the dremel exploded and a big chunk of the disc smacked off the centre of the right eye piece of my glasses...

I bought a new cooker and when I put it in the kitchen to take the packaging off, I thought "I'd best put a door stop by the back door to stop it from banging against my new cooker in the wind"

Merely seconds later, a huge gust of wind took the door which would have otherwise fucked up my new cooker.

I was once at some lights when the guys in the car next to me starting revving their engine. I started revving mine back, but when the lights turned green I was actually in reverse.

I shot backwards, and the guys in the car next to me raced off and got hit by a car pulling out from a side street.

And then I travelled to 1885.

When I was 17 I was playing basketball at home, and I took a swig of cider from a can, and felt something bouncing around in it. I was tempted to just swallow it, but as I was near a sink I decided to spit it out.

Turns out the little object was a live wasp. Had I swallowed it there's a chance/likelihood it could have stung me on the way down. I'm allergic to wasp stings, so this would have almost certainly killed me.

I always struggle with knowing what's a good choice in hindsight, especially with big things, because you can never really know what would have happened if things had gone the other way. I mean, the obvious one is choosing to end my marriage and move out - I reckon it was a good choice in hindsight, I'm certainly a happier man than I was, but you can't ever really tell, can you?

Not getting hit in the eye by half a dremel blade and not swallowing a wasp are somewhat more obvious good choices, admittedly.

I'd say that was a good choice if you're happier now.

I'd pick the same thing, too. Hard to believe (for me anyway) that was nearly 10 years ago now. I wouldn't change anything for the world if I could go back and do it again, which says to me that it was definitely the right choice to make.

I can't think of an example like the wasp/blade

The only one I have is sentimental. But it stems from wanting to do 4 A-levels (Physics, Maths, Chemistry and Computers).

I spoke to all 4 teachers and they all said, yeah, you'd be ace at these subjects, but they all said I should only do 3 (there was no point in putting extra effort in, when the universities won't care), so they convinced me. The Physics Teacher told me that if I didn't do Physics A-level I couldn't do a Physics Degree. The Chemistry teacher told me that if I didn't do Chemistry A-Level then I couldn't do a Chemistry Degree. The Maths Teacher told me that if I didn't do Maths, then I probably couldn't do a degree in any of the 4 subjects. The Computer Teacher told me that if I didn't do Computers I could still do a Computer Science Degree!

So, against my mum's advice, I dropped Computers. I went on to study Physics at Imperial College (I think then rated the 2nd hardest degree in the UK behind one of the engineer degrees at IC) and subsequently failed my end of 2nd year exams. I had decided to go to America for 2 months in-between 2nd and 3rd year, and missed the retake date. I would have to wait a year before I could retake them.

I got a job, a job that was so much fun, that I wasn't really interested in doing the retakes, so I got a worse mark the 2nd time round. I also met my wife whilst working there. It gave me valuable experience in support computers and running LANS and such, got me into playing online FPS (which would lead to 2 future jobs). Meeting Pauline, led to 4 kids, and moving from London to Exeter, and now to Ivybridge.

If I had chosen to do 4 A-Levels, I would have had to work harder between 16-18, and would have almost certainly gone on to do a Computer Science degree. I would have had a better work ethic going into Uni, and would be doing a subject that wasn't one of the hardest in the UK, and probably would have held my attention more. I wouldn't have needed a job at 20, wouldn't have met Pauline, so would not have had kids when I did, so wouldn't have moved out of London.

For a while, I thought of that decision not to take A-Level computers as a mistake, but now (and for a long time) I've thought it was the best mistake I've ever made.

Malc

Doing a computer science degree taught me only one thing, that it is possible to get a degree without honours! Who knew.

A dishonourable degree

A degree in skulduggery??

Getting a first is piss easy, you've got a 30% range to aim for. Getting a degree without honours is the trickiest of the lot, as you only have a 5% range.

I too have a dishonourable CS degree but I don't understand a word of what you're saying here.

1st : 70%-100% (30% range)
2:1 : 60%-69% (10% range)
2:2 : 50%-59% (10% range)
3rd : 40%-49% (10% range)
Pass no honours : 35%-39% (5% range)
Fail : 0%-34% (35% range)

See, dishonourable is easily the most difficult range to successfully hit.

There was no pass-no-honours on our course as a direct result. You had honours taken off you if you did over a certain amount of resits or for some other things.

Christ, I'd have been in trouble. I resat practically every exam for the first two years.

A couple of them I sat 4 times!

[Fail
Fail the resit
Resit the year and fail again
Finally study and get 89%]

Studying is cheating. It's hardly a test if you know the answers, is it?

There was that time I was going to get on an aeroplane but then my mate said that he thought he would crash so we didn't get on it. And then it did actually crash.

Hmmm, that out of control combine harvester heading towards my office looks a bit scary.

Do you sit opposite these guys?

Yeah, that's not how it worked for me. I did three years and passed the end of year exam: 'ordinary' degree. If I'd gone on to do the fourth year and passed that end of year exam I'd have got an honours degree of some sort as per your ranges above (or something like them).

I can't remember at what point I had to decide to do ordinary vs honours and if that made any difference to the course up to the end of the third year or if was just the same for everyone right the way through then you could just choose to optionally do the honours year.

I gave up my ok paid but mad hour’s job in Shop fitting 12 years ago.

I went to work for my mate it IT, with nothing more than huge interest in the topic and a will to work hard.

Took a drop in Salary and worked around Norfolk for a year before a job came up in Berkshire. I used to travel down on a Monday at 5am and stay over in the week, before after another year I was offered a permanent job and moved house.

Now I'm in charge of IT for the UK and Ireland, best move I ever made.

Brilliant! Can I get a new router, please?

In terms of jobs, I made the decision to move to the other end of the country to work in the head office of my then current firm to avoid redundancy. The company was then bought out, and I spent six further months at risk of another redundancy.

I stuck with the sinking ship, and by virtue of being the only person willing to travel down to the midlands a week at a time, became the IT representative for the old firm, to the new company.

Suddenly I was the expert, go-to guy for processes I'd only the previous month been learning myself for the first time.

But it worked out, and my two week contract extended to several months, and then they employed me permanently, and my life is sorted with work, life and (nearly) a wife.

Funny you should say that an 02 router just turned up for a guy would left the dept 5 years ago!

Not about me, but anyway...

My mother's ex husband when to a local fair when he was younger, with his sister.

he wantd to go on the small roller-coastr, and though he was tall enough he was quite young 9and probablya wimp) so his older sister said she'd go on teh ride wit him. he was in a long queue, so Janet went off to buy something from a sweet stand, whilst he queued. holding her place.

When it came time for him to get on the ride, his sister hadn't returned from the food stall. As the man running teh ride ushered him on he gave his place to another coupld of people, saying he'd wait until the next go as he was still waiting for his sistr to return.

On that run, two cars came off the track, killing the two people that he had turned down the seats for and another two people.

Brrrrr...