"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead".
Flossie's coming home...
"And I sit in the canyon with my back to the sea
There's a blood-red dragon on a field of green
Calling me back..."
(Roger Waters, from the very excellent album "Radio K.A.O.S.")
It was decided, in the end, informally and over curry; most propitious circumstances for any decision, in the Yakly books. The pace of things is constantly picking up in the world of X, and in the end it just seemed sensible that I should get the business and hassles of a transatlantic move out of the way slightly earlier than I had originally thought possible, so that I can be comfortably ensconced in a new Welsh abode, ready for when the pressure is really gonna start hitting hard, so that I will be back in my optimal coding environment. Wales, where Trip-a-Tron was made, where Llamatron was made, where Tempest 2000 and the VLM were created... Wales, where I have done my best work previously, and where I can live the semi-hermetic rural life to which I am best suited, working on the stuff of dreams, getting visited by my mates at weekends and going out down the pub in the evenings... Wales, where a YaK belongs.
Wales.
Where Flossie lives :-)
So now here I sit, on the floor because all my furniture is in boxes, probably in Santa Cruz by now, and soon to be in a container on a ship heading towards a small but influential island off the coast of Europe; listening to some rather interesting music that my Penty is kindly composing in realtime for me (you may well hear more about that later, but that's a whole nother story). The reason that I have been almost totally unresponsive to email recently is that organising a transatlantic move takes quite a bit of doing, plus I have been trying to get some work done too, plus I have had the hell visited out of me by my mates who know I am going away in the spare time that I have had. Answering all my email tends to make matters worse, since I then get a bunch more replies to field... so I am afraid I haven't bothered much. Sorry to anyone who has thought me rude; not intended as such. Once I am safely back I will be more responsive, I promise.
The process of disengaging has been quite long and crinkly, but it is now almost all done. Moving out of the furniture was the last major milestone - that, and having the landlord see the place that I have been renting and (thanks largely to the heroic cleaning-up eddorts of my mum, who visited for that express purpose last week [I am about as naturally domesticated as a billy-goat]) have him see that I have not trashed the place unduly and will therefore get my deposit back. I still have the hardware here, and a few extra things like the telly that I am going to give to a mate's mad girlfriend - but tomorrow I will gather the hardware into the hire car (sob! it was a wrench giving back the llovely Red Ship!), spend one more afternoon at the office, then go out for a monumental pissup at the local of my mate Ian Lightsynth in Sunnyvale, crash the night at his gaff and then drive (doubtless in Hangover Mode) up 101 to SFO, there to board the afternoon Virgin flight (Virgin cattle class... hmmm... I wonder if they will let me sit with the virgin cattle? :-]) back to London... and on Saturday night, UK time, I shall be down the Curry Garden for my first proper British vindy for many months.
Delag over the weekend, Monday's a bank holiday, then go see the bank dudes on Tuesday about getting the dosh together for a house, then on Wednesday, after much anticipation, I shall finally be returning over the Second Severn Crossing, and I shall be in Rejoice Mode as I finally slip over the border, into Wales, knowing that once again I am to make that fair and frequently moist country my home. I shall inspect places until I find one that is suitable for me and decent enough to bring Flossie home to, and there I shall settle, and surround myself with beasties and computers, and be an exile no more (except maybe for a week or two here and there as work dictates).
And there I shall remain; happy in that gentle country, not far from the pub, working my wizardry in peace, with only the occasional flicker of unearthly light and etherial music escaping into the valley betraying the fact that strange and interesting things are afoot; connected to the world, yet alone in my comfortable space, with my computers and my beasties around me.
There, I shall be a happy YaK. And a happy YaK combined with awesome hardware can work miracles :-)
(I'll never forget the first time I had Kentucky Fried Chicken over here. I went in and ordered various bits of unfortunate fowl, and was surprised to be asked if I wanted mashed potato or a biscuit. I thought "well, that's odd, but I can always go back and make a cuppa and have the biscuit with that", so I asked for the biscuit. I searched in vain for it, but I did come across this bit-of-bread-kinda-thing that tasted a bit like Madeira cake. Subsequent exposure to the culture led to the realisation that the aforementioned cake was, in fact, a biscuit, in this strange alternate reality).
I don't dislike America - it's just that it's not my culture. I just found out that I am too British, iz all. It came to the point that I had to ask myself, given that I could do my work from anywhere, where did I really want to be? And deep down, I knew that the answer was : somewhere not too far from Newcastle Emlyn, within walking distance of a pub, with a bit of land and a few nice beasties. The US is interesting, and the climate is great, but it's not home.
And I get to be back with my Flossie again. :-)
Of course I'll miss the mates I've made out here... but they're all wired folk, so we'll still be in touch thanks to the Space Where There Is No Distance. And I'll doubtless be back frequently to visit, due to work, so I can hang out and buy games for my Nintendo 64 and enjoy being able to get cheap jeans and Inca Kola and all the other benefits of a spell in the US, but I'll know that a couple of weeks later I'll be back home and Flossie will be bleating at me for a biccy.
And, bottom line iz, that means everything to me.
Anyway, I'll let you all know how the translocation progresses on this page. Hopefully it'll end with a nice pic of Flossie happily standing outside wherever my new gaff ends up being. There's a lot of hassle between here and there, but hopefully I'll get there. Wish me lluck...