mccullochblog

Hometown Winners!

Some of my blog posts can be a little....niche....I know, but you are my people! You understand me!

Which is why I feel confident that you will share in my joy at Dover Athletic FC - my old hometown football team - becoming champions of the Ryman League Premier Division this weekend.

It's been a rough few years down in Dover, but there's nothing like a winning hometown team to lift the spirits, especially when that team's successes are broadcast all the way across the Atlantic via a Sky Sports News bulletin on Fox Soccer Channel.

What's that you say?: "I wish I'd seen that for myself." Your wish is my Youtube!

Beautiful Day!

On a day like this - 72 degrees and sunny - there's only one place I like to go: Crystal Springs reservoir....the wilderness on our doorstep.

Blogs-U-Like?

So, I don't really hate Facebook. It was just a phase I was going through. But I do miss all the people who used to blog and now only 'status update'.

As a result of this flight-to-lazy-one-sentence-blogging, I had to multi-task last night (yes, American Idol only received half of my attention) to find a new set of online distractions.

The result is my ever-so-slightly-updated blog roll (Check out "In a spare moment" in the right hand panel.)

While the discovery of TopLeftPixel was a great find, what I really want to know is whose fabulous blogs you check on a regular basis.

Great San Francisco blogs?

Sharp, witty political humor?

Stupid ideas that you can't help reading?

Please add your favorite blogs in the comments below. How else am I going to move from the 5-10 hours of Internet use per week to the 10-plus?

Man Versus World (and Squirrels)

I haven't been well this weekend.

According to the WebMD Symptom Checker (an excellent companion for hypochondriacs) I could have the plague, viral pharyngitis or something called the 'common cold'. I was slightly disappointed not to have been scratched by a cat recently, as 'cat-scratch disease' sounded quite intriguing.

As my brother said, "at least it's not 'man flu', Dave". Quite right. That could have me off work for weeks.

Despite the plague or the pharyngitis or the cold (and the excellent football on TV this weekend) I eventually had to get out of bed to complete two chores that simply couldn't wait.

Before I go on you should know that Emma has been having contractions.

I thought contractions were something you only had in the final few hours preceeding a frenzied-dash to the hospital, so you can imagine I've been slightly on-edge since this news came out on Friday.

It wasn't until the baby car seats were safely installed in both the SUV and the commuter car that Emma told me contractions can go on for weeks. Ah well. Better to be prepared, right?

The other job that couldn't wait was the squirrel-proof strawberry patch.

The initial plan to let my strawberry plant crop mature in the house hasn't worked out well.

A plague (hmm?) of small black flies accompanied my box of seedlings into the utility room.

Having swatted about a dozen flies in the past week and then seen one fly into her Shepherd's Pie last night, Emma decided it was time for the strawberry plants to vacate the premises.

Of course, you know that just beyond the fence of our home evil squirrels lurk. Squirrels that just can't wait to shred my strawberry crop the moment I plant them outside.

So there was just no way I could let my strawberries go into the world unprotected!

What do you think? Squirrel proof?

Facebook and the Death of Blogging.

Am I the only person who's 'over' Facebook? 

Actually, I'm more than over Facebook.

I might be starting to loathe Facebook as much as I loathe reality TV.

I used to love the good old days 'before FB' when my intelligent, witty friends would write. Not to me personally, I mean, but on their blogs. I would relish reading about their adventures in the world; their opinions; their family stories, but alas, no more.

These days folks just tap out 10-15 words next to their Facebook names and, well, that's it!  Done! Honestly, is that any way to treat a friend? Even a Facebook friend? 10 words!

But what are you going to do?

Here I am lamenting the demise of a few cheery blogs when the very future of investigative journalism hangs in the balance. 'Serious' newspapers are closing weekly, and all because some bright sparks in the publishing industry thought it would be a good idea to give away the education and craft of an entire generation of journalists for free on the Web.

Doesn't that seem like a bad idea now?

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that if I'd paid my former-blogger friends by the word they might not have abandoned their blogs for the cheap thrills of Facebook! On the other hand...sometimes ten words are all you need, right?

For example: 'Facebook fatigue' kicks in as people tire of social networks

What to expect when she's expecting.

There are three things I have learned during Emma's pregnancy:

(1) The only genuinely useful things a husband can do to help his pregnant wife are the things that she can no longer do for herself. Yes, there's plenty of demand for sympathetic hair-stroking and complimenting her on how she looks great, but honestly, there's not a lot of other stuff you can do that really helps.

(2) There are actually quite a number of things that a pregnant wife can no longer do for herself. Emma was using the drill this evening to attach some sort of curtain-related item to the wall (she has evidently not entirely lost her self-sufficiency) but some tasks are certainly now beyond.

Bending down, for example.

Things that fall on the floor stay there. Mail. Sets of keys. Food items.

Owing to the water-melon sized future-son in her belly, Emma simply cannot bend down anymore, and so I can be quite useful by picking things up.

And that gives me an enormous sense of usefulness, I can tell you.

Oh, and moving heavy objects...that's another area where I now uniquely excel.

(3) No amount of 'picking things up' and 'moving heavy objects' quite gives a father-to-be the feeling he's doing enough to prepare for his son's arrival.

This, I deduce, is why I have gone on a gardening rampage of late. I think I'm actually stating to believe that creating a squirrel-proof strawberry patch (metal mesh 'roof' and solid wood 'walls') and planting a huge crop of tomato plants is exactly what my son expects me to be doing right now.

That, and figuring out how to do my own oil-change.

Oh, and summarizing twelve hours of child-birth classes into notes that might possibly make sense to me when Emma calls me and says: "It's started"!

Then again, we have four weeks to go until the due date...plenty of time to tidy up those notes, right?

...and EXHALE...

The past month has not been restful.

Since January 29th, I don't think there's been a weekend that I would describe as 'normal'. Even the weekend after the UK trip was crazy busy. There was Emma's baby shower, a couple of entertaining and touristy trips to San Francisco with Emma's chum Tanya (who had inexplicably and very kindly flown to the US for a 48-hour visit for said shower) and then...well, then there was going back to work.

Suffice to say this weekend was deliciously normal: a dinner at Osteria Stella Alpina on Friday night (outstanding - we savored every bite); a check-up visit from our Doula on Saturday morning; a fantastic two-hour bike ride up to the Crystal Springs reservoir on Saturday afternoon (just me, not Emma, naturally) and then two-year-old Kiran's birthday party to wrap up the day. (As you can see from the photo, there's really nothing like an ecstatic toddler to remind you how cool an Elmo birthday cake is.)

Today we notched 'normal' up to 11 with a sea-side brunch with the Datta's in Half Moon Bay and then we made trip to my two favorite retail establishments: Home Depot and the Half Moon Bay Nursery.

I can only assume that with my dad's passing I have inherited his great loves of gardening and DIY. It is true that Dad's gardening did produce some curiously large vegetables, and I do remember once the whole family found caterpillars in their (cooked) cabbage...but he certainly had a green-fingered gift of some sort.

Suffice to say, I was inspired, and with Emma being signed-off work now, we both had a weekend of creative domesticity. You can see the results here:

A Fine Farewell.

While the death of my father remains the preeminent thought amongst all my daily thoughts, I'll concede that a blog about one's father passing away is not exactly light reading.

In the interests of switching your (and my) attention forthwith to a happier date approaching in April, I'll bring the online mourning to a close by sharing with you a little of the day on which we bade farewell to my dad.

The funeral was....well....tough, of course, but good (we didn't mess it up). Several of Dad's old friends told me they "had a great time!" at the wake, which I suppose is what's supposed to happen, and the attendance of many old friends, neighbors and family was genuinely heartwarming on a difficult day. 

When the clinking of wine glasses and scoffing of one-inch-square treats was over, we went back to St. Margaret's Bay, where my brother lives. There we ended dad's funeral day with a bagpiper playing by candlelight upon the platform at the end of Ron's cliff-top garden overlooking the Straits of Dover.

A good end, you might say.

If you'd like to know a little more about my dad, I'm attaching below my speech from the funeral service.