Month: June 2017

Home improvement

We went to Ikea today, ostensibly for a new desk for my study. Evernote tells me I did the measurements for this desk over two years ago, so it’s probably about time. As well as a desk, we also picked up a new kitchen table (replacing one that’s probably 15 years old) and a new coffee/gaming table for the living room (replacing one that’s nearly as old as I am). We also picked up some stools and a couple of iPad holders each to make it easier to use what are fast becoming our primary computers in a number of different ways. Everything smells new and wooden, and I love it all.

I now need to work out how I want my new desk set up. I long ago accepted that my IT needs are less than they were when I actually worked in IT, and as a result I probably don’t need to have quite so many computers in circulation. How that is going to work with a larger desk I’m not sure, but I’m hoping I can at least be a little sensible when I’m deciding what actually needs to be reassembled tonight.

I’m also hoping this new setup will mean I can dismantle the standing desk I built on the living room fridge a year or so ago. It only houses a Raspberry Pi now, and it’s not really a useful workstation because the dog hates me using it to the point where she barks incessantly and/or tries to jump on my (non-existent) lap.

I like new things, and I suspect this is only phase one of a fairly major decluttering and renovation exercise that is long overdue.

1987 has a lot to answer for

I recently curated the music for a birthday party where a fair portion of the playlist was taken from songs originally released in 1987 (with a side order of 1983, 1984, and a few old favorites for good measure). As a result of this, I spent a fair bit of the last few weeks listening to music from this era, and it struck me how similar 1987 and 2017 were, both in the types of music that were popular (at least to me) and also in some of what was going on in the news. 1987 was an election year too, with The Housemartins and The Blow Monkeys (amongst others) singing about the need to change a right wing female PM for something more socialist. There were also great records from The Wedding Present, Pixies, Sonic Youth, New Order, The Fall, The Cure, Depeche Mode, and the swansong from The Smiths (as well as several of their best singles). 1987 was angry, dissatisfied, and just under half of the country wanted a change, but that change didn’t come for another few years.

Fast forward to 2017 and it’s another election year. The way we buy and consume music is almost unrecognisable, but I do note with interest that my vinyl buying habit is roughly equivalent to how it was 30 years ago, and that I’ve bought records by many of my 1987 favourites over the last year or so. I still buy lots of new music, but it seems that like Twin Peaks, Slowdive, Wire and a certain brand of gum, the things I liked then are definitely coming back in style. Which can only be a good thing.

For science!

Yesterday we visited the town of La Laguna, home of two museums, but also a lot of other impressive things to look at (architecture, graffiti, churches etc.). For me this was the highlight of the week so far, and it allowed me to see how the area I’ve been staying in developed over the centuries, and how history touched it and shaped it to be what it is today.

The first museum was a museum of history, which reminded me a little of the Museum of London in that it laid out the history of Tenerife chronologically so as to take visitors through the same journey the island has undertaken over the centuries. Thankfully there was commentary in English (I don’t normally bother with these, but my Spanish is bad enough that it was worth it). I saw a lot of impressive paintings and old books, and also took around 100 photographs which I’ll do something with when I get home.

After lunch we took a short tram ride to the science museum, which was basically a large concrete bunker full of all the usual sorts of things you see in a science museum. It wasn’t particularly innovative, but it was fun, and we ended up staying there a couple of hours and interacting with pretty much everything. Again, I photographed everything, and between the two museums and the town itself I probably have close to 300 pictures.

It’s our last day here today, and we leave very early tomorrow, so I suspect we will be having a lazy day today. It’s been a good holiday though, and this is a place I will definitely come back to at some point in the future.

Travelling further afield

I woke up yesterday feeling less than well, but soon made the decision that it was not going to stop me from interacting fully in the activities of the day. After breakfast we caught a tram, and then a bus, which took us through some fairly impressive scenery including cloud-shrouded mountains and the bluest of seas. The journey did not take too long (nothing does here – it’s just over an hour from one end of the island to the other), and we soon found ourselves in Puerto de la Cruz, which is in the north of Tenerife and is significantly more tourist focused than Santa Cruz. The differences could not have been more obvious – from the English translations on menus and street signs, to the amount of merchandise for sale in the shops and stalls that are everywhere. The day largely consisted of walking around and taking photographs (mainly of lizards– there were many lizards), and also getting coffee and snacks in a couple of places (where again the slightly inflated prices suggested a focus towards temporary visitors).

Last night’s film was Moana. I may have interacted with my iPad a fair bit during that one.