8 years ago I set a goal: 100 catches of 5 club backcrosses. After 5 years I hadn’t achieved it, but the intended side effect had happened: I was a pretty good club juggler! In January I thought it was 9 years ago I set the goal, not 8, so decided a goal for this year would be 100 catches before 10 years was up, rather than 5. I’ve been working on it seriously, an hour most days, since February. Today I set my camera to record, and this was the longest clean run I captured.
Best today: 42 catches. Personal best: 50 catches.
I have loads of new things to share on the blog, but I’ve been super busy with visitors lately. That and sitting in the sun. But I got some great photos while sitting in the sun. Meanwhile, here’s something I wrote recently, about my past and future relationships.
At the end of the podcast recording someone said, in relation to relationships and finding the perfect partner: “Perfection is self-defeating”
And it not only resonated with me, but made something I’d been thinking about for a long time crystal clear in my head. I believe that you can find the perfect girl, and that’s what Pola, my last long term girlfriend was for me. I had a pretty clear mental list of things that I wanted from a girl, and if she didn’t tick all those boxes, I wouldn’t commit completely. Pola matched them all, even to the point that one thing on the list was (quite shallowly) “Has to have good teeth.” Pola’s father is a dentist.
I made such a list after a prior disastrous relationship I won’t go into now.
So when I found Pola, or she found me, she was the perfect girl for me, and I fell in love with her. We had a life together.
But I changed, and she obviously didn’t so much, or changed in a different way. She remained the perfect woman for me, but the perfect woman for 24 and 25 year old me. By the time I was 29, I was no longer perfect for her, and while I thought she was perfect for me, it turns out I was merely blinded by love at that point.
And so Pola leaves me, and (in a way that I found quite amusing) finds someone else, and kind of re-lives the early stages of our relationship. Only this time with a younger, taller, better looking guy. They went traveling, and then decided to live together, and then moved to a new place, and set up a home together in a new country, just like Pola and I did.
Pola is the perfect woman for the first few years of a relationship. She’ll commit completely, and respond to the same commitment. I had no secure job, and was unsure what I wanted from life, but had big plans, and she was the perfect person to help and support me in this, even as I helped and supported her in her plans and goals. And then her new boyfriend had no secure job, and was unsure of what he wanted from life, but had big plans, and she was again the perfect person to help and support him.
How is this helpful?
Now, of course, I’ve got to find the new perfect woman. But it won’t be someone like Pola, as she was only perfect for 2004 Luke, and I’ve changed loads since then. I’ve got a great job and a great apartment and different friends and just a whole other life. I don’t need the perfect person to help me change my life, I need the perfect person to help me enjoy the life I have, and be willing to join me in it, as I join them in their already-established life. I don’t want someone who doesn’t know what they are doing in life, as I’ve already been through that once, and I don’t feel I can support them in the same way that Pola and I supported each other.
And of course, the perfect partner for 2011 Luke won’t be the perfect person for 2021 Luke. Perfection, certainly in the face of time, is self-defeating. I need to find someone not-quite-perfect for 2011 Luke, but who will still be not-quite-perfect for 2021 and 2031 Luke, and willing to put up with a not-quite-perfect 2021 Luke as well as a 2031 Luke, rather than someone who is still longing for 2011 Luke in 5 years time, and then leaves me to find someone more like 2011 Luke than 2016 Luke can manage.
Here’s a video I play during my stage show, and I play along with piano and sing too. It’s the best footage I’ve got of me juggling around the world from February 2009 to January 2011.
I signed up to a website called CouchSurfing, which puts people who have spare beds or couches in touch with people who need a place to stay while traveling. I don’t intend to use it myself while traveling, but I’m happy to be a good host!
So I had my first ever couchsurfer, Marcelo, stay for two nights in my spare bed. It was a fun weekend! It was a good excuse to go out for food, and he joined me on my daily walk in the park (daily when the weather is good), as well as the Three Minute Hero show I mentioned in the previous blog post. Here’s some photos from the last few days:
“Three minute hero is the new underground open stage in berlin, right on the platform of the ubahnhof schönleinstrasse.
Songs, breakdance, stand up comedy, performance whatever you want to show you can!! only limitations are the three minutes between trains arriving at the station.
Wanna show? Simply come up and you get a slot in the show. Just passing through? Well, you can always take the next train.”
Hosted by Duo Desolato.
Guitar and singing!
Hint: nobody asked permission to do this! How long could it keep going until security turns up?
Quick! Make it look as though nothing special is happening!
Magic!
Juggling!
I performed some music and juggling, but of course I don’t have photos of me.
Dancing!
Drunken singing!
Party!
Oh shit! Security! Length of show: one hour and 30 minutes.
The BVG security allowed one final act. Andy Snatch closed the show with a club routine.
Later at the Another Country English Bookshop, playing Jenga.
The sun is shining in Berlin! So I’ve been out for pleasant walks and bike rides to take advantage of the early spring. And I’ve taken my camera along too.
I don’t bother taking a tripod.
I’ve taken a photo of this statue a number of times, and I think I’ll keep doing so. Who knows, maybe something interesting will happen one day.
Korbinian, a juggler, contemplating the first outdoor juggling session of the year.
Hot chocolate in the sun.
Back out to the park.
Attacked by a pug.
Wide angle statue shot.
Cafe at the Mauerpark Flöhmarkt, with music provided by Rob Longstaff.
Beach seat with no sea.
Mauerpark Flöhmarkt.
Corn.
The Rupert’s Kitchen Orchestra.
The man in the Care Bear suit wasn’t part of the band, but joined in anyway!
I made a post on a forum about my “computer history” and thought I’d share it here on my blog, for the sake of nostalgia.
First computer in the house:
Amstrad Word Processor. Also good for Basic, text adventures and chess.
A bit hazy on the order, but:
Amstrad 464. Games and more Basic programming. Save your games to cassette tape!
And then I got the next model up! An Amstrad 6128, with a colour monitor and a disk drive. The games loaded sooooo fast!
That one was mine. My brother got a black and white TV, so didn’t need a monitor. He got:
ZX Spectrum +2
Next up, Amiga 500:
This was actually usable as a word processor, for image creation, even making animated movies. Also the sound on this system was way ahead of any other system. Oh yeah… it had a mouse!
And then, Amiga 1200:
This motherfucker had a HARD DRIVE! Enough to store something like 20 floppy disks worth of games for super fast loading. And 2MB of RAM. Awesome! I did my first music sequencing with this one.
To be clear, I never bought any of these new. Always second hand, so I was always a bit behind the curve.
Then I bought a 386 PC, with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. I used it to run Cubasis, a very streamlined midi sequencer which could control my keyboard. Yay.
I guess it looked a bit like this (just like every PC tower case).
Next was 486. It was a bit better.
Next was a Pentium computer, which was my first ever brand new computer. Windows 98! It ran the latest games, and had a 20gb Hard Drive. I put in a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live card, with a breakout port in the front slots where a CD drive would go. Now I could do audio recording, and play back multiple tracks in real time without lags and skips. I upgraded a few times, and added a DVD drive.
I then bought an all-new PC system, but only used it for a few months. I bought a Macbook for traveling, intending to use the more powerful PC when at home. It turned out that once I got used to OSX, I could never face going back to Windows XP.
As I bought the Macbook as a travel laptop, it was a bit underpowered right from the start. So a few years later I upgraded to a waaaaay more expensive MacBook Pro.
15 inch high res screen, SSD hard drive, 8 GB RAM. Super fast and works perfectly as a desktop (with an external monitor) and for traveling. I also run Windows 7. Moore’s Law kind holds true for me, but I think the price went up each time too.
I was a guest again on the trivia panel show Atomic Trivia War 9000. You know what? I surprised myself by how good I am at trivia, even successfully challenging Jason about an incorrect question. Until they turned to comics, cartoons and superheroes. Check it out.
In 2003 and 2004 I was producing a DVD featuring myself juggling in different styles. I never finished the DVD. Here is a rough cut of a 3 club section. It features a whole host of improbable tricks and even more improbable catches!
It was shot over two days, with Ewan Crichton and Nathan Rae on camera. One idea was to make it look more “action sport” than any previous juggling video, with the camera always moving.
Many tricks I did spontaneously for the camera and I’ve never tried them again. Other tricks were more planned, and some I still practice to this day!
Ah… memories.
Here’s a completely different video I made for the same project:
I have some more segments from the DVD project too. Maybe I’ll dig them out of my old PC and share them one day!
