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Tumbling Less Than Gracefully Into Middle Age

  • Odyssey, Pt. 9

    Big things have small beginnings Life was going well. I wasn’t piss poor for the first time in my adult life, my job was fulfilling, but there was something missing. I’d been in Southampton since late July 1997 and it was now 2009. I would move on from my flat on Queen’s Terrace, the owner…

  • Odyssey, Pt. 8

    Up and up January 2007 would kick off another period of big changes. It would see me back in another relationship, a change of occupation to the profession I am still in now, and start the final chapters of my time in Southampton. I would leave the country within five years, but I didn’t know…

  • Odyssey, Pt. 7

    THIS IS THE WAY On the third of January 2006, I came home from work to find SG in what would be the finale in a long line of sulks. On pressing what was wrong, she told me she thought we should split up. We’d been together seven years. We’d shared this house in Calmore…

  • Odyssey, Pt. 6

    Big Things Have Small Beginnings – David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, 1962. Cranbury Place had started out too damn small, and only got worse. My girlfriend of the time (herein referred to as SG) was already fussing about it and had one day announced she wanted to look at a flat in Portswood. I explained…

  • Odyssey, Pt. 5

    ctrl-alt-delete 2001 would be a big year for history and something like a reset for me. There would be a change of tempo, and stability at last, but all that was ahead of me. I had arrived in Southampton just under four years prior. I had been through eight job moves and six home address…

  • Odyssey, Pt. 4

    Disaster And Defeat “Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches.” Hyman G. Rickover The time had come. The band was breaking up. P was heading back North, to begin a new adventure in Leeds, Kevin would stay in Southampton with his fiancé, Rob would eventually wind up back in his beloved Wales, and I was…

  • Odyssey, Pt. 3

    FAIR SEAS, BUT A Storm warning The millennium had arrived. 2000 was upon us, all the computers kept working, the apocalypse would have to wait for now. My auditing job at the College was coming to a close. They were trying their best to keep us on, but the urgency for the work was no…

  • Odyssey, Pt. 2

    Endless Shit Jobs I’d moved to Southampton. I had a place to live, I did not have a job, but I was confident that was just a matter of days from being resolved. I turned up at Manpower Southampton and reminded them of their commitment to get me set up at BT. There was (surprised…

  • Odyssey, Pt 1.

    Southampton I left England on December 22nd 2011. My day would start in Millbrook Rd East, Southampton, and by evening would finish at College Avenue Pittsburgh, USA. I can’t tell that story without telling the story of my time in Southampton. This is the move from the North of England, and some of the reasons…

  • The Tool As The Work

    I’ve been using Linux in some capacity since tinkering with it in a lab at my old job in 2005. That’s not a long time by enthusiast standards, but it’s not nothing, either. I saw this post on Reddit and the sentiment stuck in my throat a little bit. I started out with Lindows (now…