The Challenging Art of Seating Arrangements

            On Saturday, my wife and I went to the wedding of our former roommate. It was a lovely wedding that took place at a beautiful historical building. The ceremony itself was outside, and the weather was absolutely perfect (although, we did end up sitting next to someone) and the reception and dance were held inside one of the estate’s buildings.

            Weddings are always interesting to go to, particularly when you get to the reception, because you never know who you’re going to know there or who you’ll be sitting beside. I've been to three weddings in the past two years (not including mine) and I've come to realise just how challenging it is to do a good job making a seating plan (working on the plan for my own wedding helped with this, too).

            The first of the three weddings was a friends’ wedding, but it was a wedding for a friend of both myself and my wife who we met through the theatre group my wife was a part of for several years and that I was part of for a show. So, naturally, we ended up at the “theatre friends’ table”, full of people we knew.

            The second wedding was my wife’s cousin’s. So, my wife and I knew a number of people, but not that many. This time we were put at a table with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend, as well as four people we never met before – cousins from the groom’s side of the family. At first, we were surprised, until we started talking with them. We then very quickly established that we were at the “geek” table (wearing a chainmaille tie helps bring out that sort of thing) and I don’t think any other table had as much fun as we did. The bride confirmed with us later that it had been very intentional.

            That brings us up to this last wedding – a friend’s again, but a bit different this time. It was a small wedding and we didn't know that many people there – we knew the bride and groom (of course) and had met the groom’s parent’s and the bride’s aunt and uncle a couple times. The only “guest” we knew well was the groom’s cousin who we used to play Dungeons & Dragons with, but we couldn't be at the same table as him because was the best man. The result was that we got seated at the “Well... where else can we put them?” table. This is the table that shows up at almost every wedding where awkward silences usually abound.

            Not this time, though. One of the other people at our table was the bride’s former (horse) riding teacher. We started talking to her early on and found out that her date had cancelled at the last minute and, as a result, she knew no one else there. She and my wife bonded over their ADD (and, later, over their mutual love of Supernatural), and we ended up chatting with her most of the night. We said less than ten words to the others seated at our table, but talking to her was a blast (she’s close to 60, teaches Zumba and has recently started power-lifting. Wow!).

            I guess it goes to show that, even though the challenging art of seating arrangements often results in a table of mismatched guests, that can end up being the funnest to be at. Either that or my wife and I (both introverts) just happen to be the life of the party.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Renovating

            I've just come home from a day of renovations to discover that it is, in fact Sunday – aka blogging day. I almost missed it. Didn't this just happen, like, a week ago or something?

            Anyway, yes, renovations. My wife and I are soon moving from my parents’ house to her parents’ house. This seems like a simple enough process, except that we are first converting the house into two separate apartments. This is because I have allergies to a number of their pets, plus they want to downsize and eliminate possible clutter space and so we’ll have our own space.

            It’s an interesting process, made difficult by the fact that there is a limited amount of work we (who know next to nothing about renovating) can do without my father-in-law (who knows how to do just about anything) who’s working a lot right now.

            Nevertheless, progress is being made. Various walls were torn down and, over this weekend, new ones were put up. Along with my wife’s cousin (another renovating rookie who, incidentally, looks a lot like Hagrid), I learned how to put up drywall and we became pretty good at it over the weekend.

            The downside is that my hands are completely worn out from all the work we did today, so I'm going to stop typing now. You may be hearing more about renovations in the future – if nothing else, you should be getting pictures when everything’s done.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Curse That Cursor

            Blink. Blink. Blink. That’s all that nasty cursor does. It just sits there and blinks. It’s no help at all. I sit here for ages, just watching it blink away when it’s supposed to have a beautiful stream of words flowing out from behind it.

            ...

            Okay, I’ll admit that it’s more of a jumpy, fragmented, frequently doubled back upon for corrections stream of words, but my point still stands. There are supposed to be words there and there are none. Couldn't the cursor be a little more helpful than this? Couldn't it do more than just sitting there, blinking?

            I know! It could be an inspiration coach. The word processor could sense when it is inactive and the cursor could morph into a dragon and fly around the screen, or start spewing writing advice, or, at the very least, fall over out of boredom. At the best, it could start writing all on its own.

           Hey, look! Words! I did it. I wrote a blog. Well done me.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Fixing the Global Economy

            I've often looked at the economy and wondered what could be done to make it work better. There’s a complete lack of balance in the wealth, there are far too many people unemployed and – at least in first world countries – there is far too much waste.

            So, here’s my thought of what we need to do. First, we cut the average work shift from 8 hours to 4 hours – this doubles the number of shifts available and entirely eliminates unemployment, while allowing people to either spend more time doing what they actually want to do or to work a second job without killing themselves.

            Second, because there are so many more jobs available, we’ll then be able to cut back on the surplus of products we are currently creating. Between the lower number of products being created and the subsequent less materials required, jobs and employment should balance out perfectly – there will even be a bit of flex room available, allowing jobs to be made available as people need employment.

            Third, we eliminate built-in obsolescence. Because there will be more people working shorter hours (less stress, more relaxation time) and creating fewer products, we’ll be able to afford the time and materials to make things properly and to last. They will be a little more expensive, but we won’t have to buy a new one every couple of years.

            Fourth, balance the money flow. Pay people what they deserve and what they need to survive. There’s enough money out there – it just isn't in the right places.

            The end result is that we’ll be paying more people (shorter hours) to make less things (albeit higher quality) and we’ll have so much less waste that we’ll be able to use our resources to help less fortunate countries. Wouldn't that be nice?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.