Archive for the “Day to Day” Category

I would say that it doesn’t take awfully much to annoy me. As somewhat of a perfectionist I take a moody disposition towards flaws and inconveniences, particularly where the ingredient of unfairness or incompetence is tossed in.

While I would say that I am one of my own harshest critics, I would also say that collective entities such as institutions bear a significant degree of the brunt of my scathing perspective also.

It was no different this morning as I negotiated the mish-mesh of streets in the heart of Paceville. Even though I’ve done it hundreds of times before, the disappointment and eventual frustration of being unable to find a legal parking space is a special kind of feeling that often tests the boundaries of that which I would call rage.

Circling in and out and about and in again, multiple passes, varying route, extending my search area further and further outwards as the second hand ticks down the minutes to the hour of appointment. All being told it took around fifty minutes to finally settle for a parking space fifteen minutes walk away from the intended destination. The brisk walk down and up the valley slopes long choked by urbanization was, by comparison, a relief.

It turned out to be worth my while however as even though I did arrive minutes late that which followed was for the most part a positive experience. Perhaps the end of an era of (official) idleness is upon me.

This would conclude this chapter of seeking that has spanned many months. While I would have said that I am frankly surprised that the search was not concluded long earlier, I cannot truly say that I am. After all, the national unemployment figures were up 2,597 persons to a total of 7,680 persons unemployed (link).

In the weeks prior to my post two evenings ago I wasn’t exactly feeling very inspired. I feared that I had lost my touch and this is one of the reasons that it took me so long to get back in the game. I have a tiny secret that I should probably share with you all.

I have little idea exactly what I am going to be blogging about.

That did actually bother me a very short while ago, but I have decided to place some trust in my tendency ‘not’ to run out of ideas, or things to say.

A former reader did ask me whether I would be writing about politics this time around. I may write about politics but it is not my intention to let politics rule my writings.

I will take things one day at a time.

In the meantime my thoughts are drifting to a field that I last recall interesting me some nine years ago – and that field is cycle design. No, I do not speak of the gasoline or even the two wheeled types that dominate the western markets. I am more interested in working on a four wheeled variant powered by foot and volt.

Unsurprisingly I have already received a rather negative response but adversity is something that I have come to expect in fields unorthodox or novel. I have a few ideas and while it is rare that I see them run the gauntlet from fantasy to realization, you just never know.

No I won’t be placing any bets.

As one door closes others shall open. This is the way of life even if the doors may not immediately be clear. I do recall referring to this same phenomenon upon an older web presence of mine several years back and yet it remains just as relevant if not more so.

This web log has floundered. It has become an online fossil floating upon the cyber waters of the information ocean. It fell silent for a number of reasons and I shall not delve deeply into them, and not at all for the moment.

The pace was broken and I apologize to those readers who have been left wondering what would become of this space. Well I can finally give a proper answer to this question.

It shall be made whole…

Up until now this web log, while it operated, was one of a reactionary nature. I looked outside and observed and came back to this space with my observations. It has thus far been too political, too aloof and too impersonal.

I am not entirely certain what I would like it to become but I do have a number of ideas, most importantly of these will be the dispensing of a few myths and discarding the unnecessary and the unjustified.

It is time to take a step towards humanity and break the silence. This moment is not now – I have yet to determine how extensively things may or may not change – but things shall change.

We shall see.

The recent wisps of cloud that have partially shrouded the sun’s rays were and remain a welcome shift in the weather patterns that have graced the Maltese Islands as of late. Not only has the weather brought a fairly decent flow of wind but the shaded periods also provide myself with respite from the radiance of light seeping through the thick curtains of my room before proceeding to filter warmly through my eyelids as I do my bit to get some sleep. Its never anything that a soft piece of cloth used as a blindfold cannot fix of course but the shadows always seemed a little more calm, easy and less invasive than the light.

And yet it makes me quietly yearn for the coming month, September, where clouds become less alien to the azure skies and where the hope for less stifling temperatures is very much present within my mind. Of course, one of my favourite aspects of the month, certainly about half-way into it, is the significantly higher potential to witness spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

There is just something so fulfilling about watching the dance of the solar rays within the hanging clouds of ever changing shape and hue. Regardless of whether the horizon it rises upon is a green forest bursting with life or the barren smouldering landscape of a recent war zone. Regardless of whether it heralds a day of joy or leaves behind a day of mourning the natural cycles proceed virtually unscathed.

In my few travels I have been fortunate enough to look down upon and drive by seemingly massive wooded lands and paddocks. I have had the pleasure of watching the sun set and then listen to the rolling thunder outside. Ah yes. Such memories shall remain with me and nor shall I forget those who had shared their experiences with me, regardless of what the future may send my way. I mark the 11th of August as a day holding a fragile link to some of the happier moments so far experienced, to be kept and cherished as an era all in its own. And with this in mind the past is to be appreciated but the future is yet to be faced. Another sunrise and another sunset – another experience and another episode in the progression of life.

Well a month has passed and I somehow managed to fit in a fresh fragment for every day of it, give or take a little stuttering in the post scheduling. It has been a satisfying time and I got to make a number of new blog contacts and a couple of really pleasant persons through it so I’d say that it has been worth my while.

However as with all good things sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and ease the pace a little. OK. Sure it doesn’t seem like a lot but the truth is that I have to balance upon several tightropes and yet remain on-track. It is the downside of taking on commitments – you eventually get round to realizing that they actually take up sizeable chunks out of your time.

Well, all misgivings aside, I shall be cutting down on contributions to about once every other day. While it will hopefully mean an improvement in the qualitative selection of post topics, such is beyond my ability to guarantee. In the meantime the ‘Ask James‘ page is still active and I will seek to answer questions as best as I can. Actually I encourage readers to send in questions as good questions tend to save me time thinking about what I will be writing about next.

There are not many things that I truly get hung up on. For the most part things just slide off of me like water off a duck’s back. However there do remain a few things that bother me and one of the worst would probably be personal inefficiency.

I like to be punctual. It doesn’t matter if it is meeting a deadline set by others or myself or whether its getting to a certain place by or at a certain time, I do not like to keep persons waiting. It is fortunate that I do not apply these standards quite as rigorously to other persons around me as I’d probably end up with an even smaller network of individuals that I’d call friends than I do at present.

However I also have several rather annoying habits that sometimes hinder my ability to meet my own standards. One is a tendency to underestimate tasks that I have to deal with, or to overestimate my ability to deal with them within a set period of time. Another is a tendency to take on or seek to take on more tasks than I can actually handle at any one time. This is why my personal to-do list dwarfs my done list. Either way these little quirks mean that I end up encroaching upon or even surpassing my deadlines more often than I would care to admit. It is similarly fortunate that this is far more likely where the tasks are being dealt by myself and ‘for’ myself but occasionally other persons do get a bitter taste of it in the form of way-overstepped expected deadlines.

I guess it comes down to having time-management issues really and, since I am reluctant to give up the new-found pace that I’ve set into motion within this web log, I thought it would be good to use this opportunity both to apologize to that individual who is waiting for work from myself as well as to provide a little insight to readers. I am working upon it of course, and will try to get results through as soon as possible, but I’ll be sparing the estimates this time as they were wildly optimistic the last time round and I’m nowhere near done with the segment concerned.

Besides, I can be a bit of a perfectionist and if there is one thing that troubles me more than handing in work late, it would have to be handing in what I personally consider to be shoddy work.

Yes… I do recall that I had stated that I would be setting this ball rolling as of the beginning of May… a whole two months ago… but I frankly found that circumstances were just not favourable enough for such.

I could regale yourselves with a number of well-thought-out excuses, such as having underestimated the time pressure that the examination and assignment hand-in period, or of having struggled to keep up with tasks that I chose to perform for friends and associates, or having grappled with a mid-life crisis every bit as premature as the receding of my hairline… but I shall not, at least not beyond that which I have already touched upon.

And yet for as long as educational and work-related commitments persist I shall allow the pathforger.com site to idle for quite some time longer which, while not thrilling to myself, is the best thing to do. I’ve stated it several times before since its inception – there is a lot more to pathforger than James Cauchi – and I feel that my continued solitary presence on the website merely enforces this misconception further within the minds of readers.

As such I shall be redirecting and channelling a portion of my sustaining energies towards the development of this my personal web log. This will allow myself to write a lot more freely as within this web log my personal opinions and observations could not sit more comfortably – they belong here. Sure, I shall be reviving a number of topics spoken of on the pathforger site (as the solitary writer it is unsurprising that there shall be striking similarities) and shall be using this as an opportunity, both to give substance to my identity in the minds of readers as well as to introduce and expand upon new concepts.