Dark Day

Jacob, my son. 

You were born in the middle of Spring, in the middle of the month, in the middle of the day, in the middle of Buckinghamshire and given a middle name that means to be polite. 

You're nearly two now and you are talking more and more every day. You can say the whole alphabet and all the iconic animal's names. You call me Daddy. You say "Hello Daddy". You are doing very well my son. 

If I am killed by disease or hazard before you get to know me, I want you to know that I don't drink alcohol very much, only one small glass of whiskey on my birthday and Christmas. Although my dream man cave has a bar, it is an arcade bar. You see, arcade bars are different from normal bars, they served softdrinks and coffee to all the kids so they could stay in the arcade for longer. I was a kid in the 90s so it was something I was familiar with.  That is why I want to build a bar in my home, it is an arcade bar for drinking coffee or cream soda, things like that. 

Mars Probe Family

At the end of February 2021, a family of 3 robot probes arrived at the planet Mars. An orbiter called 'Reconnaissance', a Rover called 'Perseverance', and a drone called 'Inginuity'. The three Robots will work together to try to find life or proof that there was life on Mars in the past. 

I visit the NASA.gov website quite often to see what the probes have discovered. From what I read on the web site, the drone is using off the shelf lithium ion batteries and they are being charged up by the rover but it also has its own solar panels. They say it will take a long time to charge the batteries because a lot of power is used to stop the temperature going too low, if the temperature goes below a certain level, the electrical components get damaged. 

If the 'Inginuity' drone probe manages to fly, it will be the first time a machine flew on the planet. Mars' atmosphere is very thin because the solar wind from the sun striped it away so it is very hard to fly on Mars. 

It will be interesting to see what the probes discover. 

Spanish class gaming

If I am worried about wasting time when I am playing computer games, I ask my smart Speaker to play my language class audio. That way I am doing three things at the same time. I'm trying to enjoy life, getting rid of stress and learning Spanish. The same audio is on my phone so I can play it while I am playing card games.

I am starting to build up my man cave I call the "happy zone". It starts out with a few retro flash back consoles. Then a small bar with consoles that shares the space of a sitting room, then it will eventually  be in a room all on its own with the modern games consoles. Then VR walking pods for playing golf in virtual reality. Then there will be a pool table and foot ball table and arcade machines. This is a dream that is achievable. I just have to do it bit by bit. Just need to set more goals. 

SpaceX Starship

Americans are currently trying to privatise space exploration so they can bring down some of the costs. One company that has taken the challenge is SpaceX.  They made a heavy duty rocket called 'Starship' and tested it a few days ago. 

It landed then exploded. Quite a lot of the prototypes seem to do that, they fall over or just explode for no obvious reason. I wonder how the NASA Astronauts feel about going into space on these privately made space rockets. After seeing them blow up I would feel quite worried myself. 

Privatisation doesn't always work. In the 90s us Brits privatised the railways, I consider them to be very bad value for money. If I wanted to go from High Wycombe to Newcastle I would need to buy tickets for 3 different train operators so I would be ripped off. Also there is no competition between the train operators so they don't have much pressure to improve their service, to cut a long story short I would say that privatisation has ruined British rail. The price I would pay just to go to the next county is the same price it costs to go all the way across Germany and Germany is much bigger than the UK. Plus the trains would be quicker and more reliable. 

Liesure Fluid

The most dominant thought in my head is trying to understand why I am conscious and what my purpose is, but the second thought is what I want to do. 

I dream of creating the "Happy Zone". It is a mancave /liesure room that grows like a tree. It starts small then grows over time. At the moment the "Happy Zone" fits inside a shoe box. It is a mini flashback Mega drive games console and a portable gaming device. The mega drive comes with 40 built in games from the 90s and 2 bonus games that were never on sega, Tetris and Darious. I love playing Tetris, I love playing Card games and golf games and games where you build and manage things like 'Roller Coaster Tycoon'. 

The next step would be to build bar in my home, most likely in the sitting room. The bar would have ordinary shelves that are dressed up as bar shelves(novelty lighting and bottles of fruit consentrate). There would be a very small TV screens for the flashback consoles. They work better on smaller screens because we never had many pixels in the 90s. There would be a coffee machine on the bar table for making hot drinks like tea and coffee. On the shelves would be the games consoles from the 90s with games on them that were all about fun. 

Eventually the Happy Zone would take up a whole room with a pool table and things like that. 

March Thoughts

I was thinking about Easter for a bit and realized that Passover and Easter will both be on the first weekend of April this year. They can Passover the Easter egg. My jokes are so dry! I was also thinking about how quickly time is passing by, it felt like last week that the president was being inaugurated. 

Next year, Easter will be on my son's birthday. He was born in the Easter zone so from time to time his birthday will be on Easter or close to Easter. 

I was wondering if the Sega 'game gear' from the 90s would have been more successful if 'lithium ion' batteries had been perfected in the 90s instead of the following decade. I see rechargeable lithium 'double a' batteries in the shops that can store 2 & ½ thousand milliamps. The game gear took 6 'double a' batteries and would run out of power in just a few hours, I'm sure if today's batteries were used it would last all day. Would that be a game changer?  I will never know.  Perhaps there would be a Game gear 2 and 3 or something like that. 

I was also wondering if the helicopter thing attached to the 'perseverance' space probe has taken off yet. I will have a look later. Mars is a dead and dry planet, a bit like my jokes. 

What February 2021 means to me

It is March now, the month that brings the start of Spring. I am already seeing daisy flowers in the grass so by my own definition it is spring already. In about three weeks it will be officially Spring and the clocks will go forward 1 hour I think. 

It was in February that I observed civil unrest in India and Mayanmar. In India it was because the farmers were unhappy with privatisation of the food market, they wanted to continue to sell their produce to the government at a fixed lower price, they were unprepared for the changes taking place. In Mayanmar, the people were very angry that the military took control of the country and arrested the elected government. When everyone is sick and broke the bad guys win I think, it is like history is repeating itself. The bad guys present themselves as the problem solvers. 

On the 18th of February the Mars probe called 'Perseverance' landed on the surface of the planet. They sent it there to look for life or evidence of life in the past. The planet looks dry cold and dead to me but I know very little. The probe has a helicopter companion that will try to fly in the planet's atmosphere to monitor the terrain from above. 

In my little world I was lost in thought, I was filled with thousands of questions and my mind was questioning the workings of light, materials and the meaning of life itself. I was also imagining my dreams of having a man cave to play in and workshop to build experiments. I call the destination of my desire the 'Happy Zone' because the thought of it makes me happy and it is what I do that makes me happy, not materialistic things like money and prestige. I am happy because of Gratitude to God and my hobbies. 

We spent the whole of February in Lockdown and I was very tense. I feel like I'm not in control of what is happening all around me. I keep my chin up for Spring.