Thursday, 12 May, 2005

Last Friday, it was Phil's wedding. It's mad because I knew this guy long before college. He even pre-dates most of the people a still know from high-school such as Peepo, Ste and Baz. I've known this guy for probably tweleve years as he's a friend of my brother. In the summer holidays of one year we used to go over to his house and play Golden Eye for the N64 until four in the morning. This was pretty much the routine every day for entire summer holiday.

That was the year when the first Matrix film came out and I can remember, quite vividly, going to pictures to see it not once, you understand, but three times. This was way back in the past, before the diving under the desks at Halton college, before college itself and before Darth Lapin, Mel and the train wreck that followed that episode. This was a time so ancient that when I look back on it it feels as if I've just prised open an undiscovered tomb of an egyptian pharaoh and I'm the first man to smell the air that's gone stale from thousands of years of dark confinement.

Yes, my friends, this is a man that has been in my life so long that you can of just accept he exists and isn't going anywhere. He's like an extra that happens to pop in at crucial scenes in the pantomime of life. While Phil has never been a key player like some other people he's certainly been a good man. He's the kind of guy you can not see for a year and spark up conversation as if you'd only spoken to him a few days ago. It's these people that should never under-estimate the importance of. One of the bigger lessons I've learned over the last few years has been not to take your friends for granted, as this is often the first step you take to losing one.

So Phil has got married but I can't help feeling some crucial mile-stone has been passed. It's not that we've all become men; that happended a long time ago. It's that marriage marks the begining of a new family. As such, the cycle that has persisted for generations is about to start again. We're all getting to the age where it's not our own lives that are the centre of our universe but those of our spouses and children. On Friday, the centre of gravity shifted a notch towards this position. It's all strange new territory.

Speaking of mile stones, this week I have the theory part of my driving test. I've done quite a bit of practice but it's not nearly enough so I'm not going to be overly optimistic. If I do pass on Friday it will be a big step closer to being able to drive to work. Something, as I've said before, will really improve the quality of my working life. This has been one of my core new-years resolutions and for the first time since antiquity I'm actually going to complete a core resolution. Make no mistake about it, I'm really looking forward to being able to drive my big blue bubble mobile. Emoticon: Smile

A week on Saturday, I go to Northern America. The first stop is Florida, which I'm in for around four days, and then after this I head off to Canada to see an old pal of mine Tom St Denis. Tom is known in the cryptographic community for his LibTomCrypt C library. I met up with him a few months ago in Paris and we hung out for a few days. It was so cool being in a foreign country and meeting a friend off the internet. The icing on the cake was when I managed to meet Greg Rose, head of Cryptography at Qualcomm (the Australian telecommunications giant). This time I'm visiting Tom in his home country and he's promised to show me the sights. Naturally, I'm looking forward to seeing Canada first hand but I'm also looking forward to seeing where the action happens on LibTomCrypt.

After spending four days there, I return to Florida and this where I will stay for remainder of my two week holiday. There's a lot going on the couple of weeks and I'm allowing myself to get excited about it. The last week has been a time for reflection and anticipation and I hope this post gives you some insight in to what's going on in the world of Simon. This will probably be my last personal post before I go to the Americas so I wish you all well for the next three weeks. My next post will probably be on a technical topic of some description.

Simon

09:31:08 GMT | #Life | Permalink
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