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August 6th 2004 : Junior is born

Joseph James is born at 8.41am on Friday 6th August, at the Royal United Hospital in Bath.

July 2004 : hiatus

I write this on the evening of Sunday July 11th. It seems that Junior might be born early, therefore, I am taking a break from this web site for a while. If I get a spare hour with nothing else to do, then maybe I will write something. But I'm not putting pressure on myself to do so.

June 2004

It's now two months BJ (before Junior). I've written a few more pages, kept the garden diary going and updated my work page.

This month we go on holiday, perhaps my last, until the 2010's, without a child in tow.

May 2004: time

It's only three months now until Junior will, (touch wood), be born. One of the main things I've experienced during this period of impending fatherhood is how precious time has become. I am looking forward to Juniors birth, but I also am acutely aware that in three months my life will change forever. This fact focusses the mind beautifully. It makes me think that if only I had felt this motivated during my twenties, then what might have I achieved? Instead, I frittered time and life away.

I write this on May Bank holiday, and Deborah is away, so I have the day to spend: 1. writing for this web site, 2. pottering around the garden 3. going for a long swim, before ending it watching the snooker. It is the sort of day that may never happen again. Of course, it may be replaced by something better: bringing up Junior.

Will Junior let me spend time searching the web for 'Chub' Peabody football cards? Or recording my swimming times, or obsessively watching cricket scores or weather patterns? Possibly not, which is why I have just written a page about weather.

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Monday April 5th 2004

I've added a page about swimming, my latest interest. The page is just a short essay. I am resisting m urge to be overly obsessive and start recording the length of my own swims.
I've been inspired by re-reading Charles Sprawsons wonderful book 'Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero', which I found recently being sold on eBay.

Talking of eBay, I have had no luck in finding a 'Chub Peabody' football card for sale, but I did buy three Peabody freight trains.

 

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Tuesday March 30th 2004 - day

'Think I'll pack it in and buy a pick-up
Take it down to L.A.
Find a place to call my own and try to fix up.
Start a brand new day.'

from: Neil Young 'Out on the weekend'.

Had a couple of days off - planned to develop this site.
Heres why I haven't.

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Friday March 12th 2004 - evening

I'm listening to radio reports about the huge peaceful 'demonstrations' that the Spanish people are undertaking at the moment.
My thoughts are with the Spanish people at this moment.

March 9th 2004:: 'Chub' Peabody and eBay

Since starting this site I've been looking for other 'Peabodys' on the web. I did some searches on eBay: in the UK eBay a few people are selling the Madonna book "Mr Peabodys Apples" and there is usually a Dave Peabody CD for sale.

In the USA there is far more Peabody related paraphernalia for sale. I came across a cigarette card of a wonderfully monikered American footballer 'Chub' Peabody. I've seen four or five people selling this card. I've decided I must have it. So far, most of the sellers of the Chub card will only post to the USA. I bidded on one lot where the seller would post worldwide, but the auction finished in the middle of the night and I was outbid. Next chance I get I may have to bid high to make sure I get it.

Discovering 'Chub' has motivated me to find out more about these cards. I discovered that collecting these cards is a big thing in the States. Daves Vintage Football cards stocks the entire set of cards, and actually claims to have 12 in stock of the Chub card, 9 of which are in 'very good' condition and are priced at $4.50 each. If I can't buy form eBay I may use this site.

Makes you realise how successful eBay is in making you want to buy things you didn't even know existed, let alone want to pay money for.

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February 27th 2004.

We've been 'live' a few weeks now. Seems like I've already reached my core audience of two (brother and brother-in-law).
Started a garden diary, which has been the main focus of recent work.
Found a few quirks in the display of some pages on Mozilla, will look into this over the weekend.
My other task - to find out how much water a bucket of snow makes...

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February 2004.

This is my personal web site, recently purchased. I have spent the last few weeks - evenings and weekends - working on it.

I enjoy writing web pages and this site will allow me to try out techniques and ideas in web design, and, specifically, xhtml and css. This is my site and I will not be pandering to the tastes of others. As this web site probably has a potential audience of about 2 or 3 people, I don't think this is a problem. That said, I will be trying to make the site accessible and lovely in all browsers: that is, after all, one of the reasons for using xhtml and css.

Sometimes I like to write. I'm wondering whether having my own web site will encourage me to write about stuff that interests me. But it won't be a blog. There are hundreds of good ones already, and:

1. I have nothing to add to those already existing and
2. I know I'd not keep it up.

What I would like to do is write about my garden. Until two years ago I'd never done any gardening at all, nowadays I can't wait to get into the garden.

I may write about other stuff that interests me. Or I may not. I'll certainly keep the sub-site for my football team up to date until the end of this season at least. The things that interest me at the moment are football, my garden, the birds that live in my garden, and books. And wine, red of hue. Am currently well through a bottle, whilst listening to Bob Harris's Country Hour on BBC radio2.

 

 

Design and content rog peabody 2004.