What's in a name

Names are funny old things, and not just in the sense of the Billy Connolly ditty I stole the name of this post from. We all have them (names that is, not Billy Connolly) and all take them for granted. As a kid I remember that I would ponder whether it would be better to have a cool name rather than an ordinary one, and then later as I got older what would a nice second name be, if I were going to change it when I got married. These ponderings are just that, simple musings about the future.

You see names are actually pretty important. They allow us to define ourselves and link us to our family. They can provide a sense of identity and history that can be really hard to escape from. Hell when people want a new start, or want to distance themselves from their family they often change their names. Names have been used in the past to define what your job or role. Names like Butcher and Taylor were used by people who carried out those jobs (aka Jones the steam from Ivor the Engine). In the Celtic regions names were used to signify who was your sire (MacLeod meant son of Ugly - but you get the idea). In a lot of ways names are who we are, and when people were disowned a lot of the time they would loose the right to use that name.

So back to there here and now - there may come a time when you meet someone and decide that you are going to get married, and then the name question comes up again - will you or won't you change it. This is not something that is specific to being female, I have known guys that have changed their name after they got hitched as well. Suddenly when it comes time to think about the name change, now suddenly it becomes more real - do you really want to be known as something else when you have spent x number of years being known as one thing. After all our name is something that we use to define who we are. Especially when it has been yours for all of your life.

When it came time for me to change my name I thought I would be fine with it- if for no other reason that it would be easier for other people to spell and it would be the end of the Highlander quotes from people (really there are only so many times that you can hear quotes about there being only 1). I had spent 25 years spelling out my surname to everyone who needed to write it down, and I was kinda sick of doing it. Part of the annoyance came from the fact that, no matter what I said, or how I said it; they would write down something different. I tried pretty much everything including spelling out each letter as it were some kind of code (M for mother, a for apple) and still they got it wrong. Despite all of this I felt a little separation anxiety about the whole change of name business and decided that rather than getting rid of my old name I would just add in my new surname and keep my old one as a middle name.

So anyway, all went well and I changed my name thinking that it would be nice to have a name that I would not need to spell out to everyone - I mean while MacLeod was not the easiest name for folks to spell (based on past experience) how hard could Lally be. I mean there are only 5 letters in it and three of them are L!

Guess what - it turns out that I was wrong - no one can spell Lally either - damn it!. I am still spending all my time spelling my surname out to people who seem determined to write down something that bears no resemblance to the words I am saying. This weekend was no exception - while trying to arrange an appointment it took us 3 attempts to get someone to write down our name correctly. We ended up discussing this in the car later on in the day and Rob said that this had always been an issue - folks just can't spell it. That got us both to thinking was there a way that we could make it easier for folks to get it - other than us bellowing it's Lally, L-A-L-L-Y you diddy.

Eventually we came up with a work around - there is a site that produces mini card call moo. Mini cards are like business cards but about half the size. You can order a box of 100 for £10 design the image you want on them and then add any text you want. If you have any images you want to put on - then they can be uploaded and used, or you can use images that they have on the site to customize the cards, and, if you really cannot be bothered you can just ask them to send you a pack of mixed designs. So now we have both ordered some of these and when someone asks me my name I can just give them one. Hell it has to be easier than the spelling process just now. Now I just need to ponder how to get it to work on the phone.

Smaller worlds and online conversations

In the grand scheme of life people come and go, be they personal friends or just folks you follow for one reason or another. Occasionally, if you are lucky you can catch up with them later in life. With the whole online social networking thing happening that is far easier than it has ever been.

A case in point since signing up to facebook I am now in touch with a younger cousin who I had not seen since she was 6 or 7, a couple of friends I used to go to school with and a couple of guys from uni. Not bad really when you think about it.

The other thing that social networking sites have done is give people a perceived insight and connection with people they would not normally get to speak to. If you think about the actors, sports stars etc that use these sites - how often would someone feel that they could get in touch with them?

For these guys though it is not all roses - I am sure that they get a ton of rubbish and abuse through it but hey at the end of the day they do have that contact with their fans.

With my interest in MMA I have ended up on myspace looking at the pages of some of the fighters that I have been interested in. More from a what are they like, what are they doing point of view. Now normally I would not even consider sending someone a letter about something they have said/done but a couple of these guys said something that I really respected so I dropped them a line - and to my surprise they got back to me. This communication with these guys has meant that I have felt a little more of a connection with them and what is happening in their strive to be the best, and, as a direct consequence of this I have felt like they deserve to have my support.

So what does this all mean - well not a lot other than the idea that the world is getting smaller by the day and it is no longer odd to be in touch with someone who is on the other side of the world.

Anyhow one of the guys I have followed for a while - through his ups and downs, has been Evan Tanner. The one thing you can say about this dude is he has lived a very colourful life. in his posts he looks at what he has done, be it right wrong and then talks about his thoughts on the whole experience. He tries to make sure that when he encounters failure he rectifies the situations that caused it and tires to talk about his thoughts. He has not always been this way but he is trying and you have to respect that. Throughout the years he has had some ups and a lot of downs. He has had issues that he has not handled well, he has made himself ill and then fought his way back to healthy. He has ran up debts and paid them off, made and lost friends, and talked about it all online. So anyhow Evan has posted about things when they were going well as well as not so well and people have followed him sending messages of congratulation or support as and when they have felt the need to do so. Sometimes these have not gone down well but other times they have. A lot of the guys the pick up his blog have been in contact with each other and they are spread across the world - showing that it really is a small world after all.

Evan is not the only guy that does this - a lot of the other do and I have to say that they are all pretty happy to answer the mails they get as well as keeping the conversation going. There is no onus for them to get back to anyone - but they do and it is usually with more than a simple thanks.

Anyhow today I checked out Evan's site and followed the link he posted, and for the first time in a number of years Evan will be back in the ring in March and I am actually excited. I saw the photo and the match details and it made me smile.

Why do I feel an investment for a guy who I have chatted to online briefly. To be honest I don't know but I do. I have seen some of his successes and heard about his failure from the man himself and now in a way, knowing what he pins to this fight I feel that I have to send as much good thought to the guy as possible so that is what I will do. Do I know for sure he will win. Nope. Will my thoughts it change anything, unlikely, but sometime folks just need to know that there are people there wishing them well, no matter what the outcome will be, and they also need to know that come what may - those same people will still be there for them. Even if they are on the other side of the world

Post Christmas Funk

Having been at a loss as to what to write for a wee while now - I took a brief hiatus from this blog. Well the inspiration has still not really come back - but I have decided that perhaps the only way to be inspired is to get on and do it and see what happens - so here goes nothing.

Christmas has been and gone - which is always a little bit of a downer. To me the house always looks so much more empty and desolate when the decorations are taken down (though having the space back is always nice). I had to wonder whether the whole fugg that comes after Christmas may have something to do with my lack of desire to do much of anything - but to be honest it probably has more to do with the fact that I just have not been out and about doing stuff.

So anyway, as per most folks on the post Christmas track we have not been up to lot - other than pottering about the house. One of the things I have been working on is improving my painting skills. Before Christmas I purchased a model set with 100 figures in it of varying sizes to allow me to experiment with some different painting styles.

In the past the largest set of models I have attempted to paint has been no more than 6 characters (well twelve if you include their mounts) so figured that this would be a bit more of a challenge. I decided to take the approach of building only a few (no more than 25) models at a time to ensure that I would not grow bored with painting each set. A lot of the challenge with these ones comes from the fact that some of them are very small (the average size seems to be about 2.5cm's) but his has allowed me to work on the detail painting.

One of the challenges for me is keeping the consistent look at feel in terms of coloration and style of painting on each set of characters. However being consistent with the work I have currently done has worked well. The bug change with working on this set has been working on a black base. Usually I would spray the figures with white base coat but as they are largely dark I decided that the black base would be a better way to work and this seems to have worked out for the best, although getting the brighter colours (like blood red) to really pop is much harder (and requires the build up of lighter undercoats to allow for the colours to show to their best)

I figure that I will post up some of the models on my flickr account and link them through here as they complete.

Quote me happy

In an inspired bout of girlyness (and yes that is a word....for so say I) I spent a while talking about interior decor and was passed on the link to a site that creates decals for your walls. For those of you that are wondering about what a decal is, well you can think of it as a fancy transfer that you can apply to something. The type of something depends on the one that you buy.

Anyhow there were a number of these decals that took my fancy but one of them has really captured my imagination. The company concerned will make you word decals. Basically you can specify a phrase, word or quotation and they will make it up for you. This really appeals to me as I have a bit of a thing for quotes and sayings. So this got me thinking - what could I come up with that I would like on a wall.

Now for someone that likes quotes I really struggled with this - not because I could not think of any but I wanted to find the right one, the one that I would not be sick of when I looked at it 2 weeks after I put it up. Looking for inspiration I went through my little quotes book (an old journal that I took to collecting them all in) and could not find anything that really inspired me.

I have always liked the quote from Revelation 6:8 (or Pale Rider depending on your frame of reference)

And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him

Now this is not the cheeriest of quotes so I started looking for some others but did not find anything that really took my fancy.

Now the plan is to find a quote that I like and will not make the house look a state - any suggestions greatly recieved

Follow up - what makes a fighter

In my previous post I mentioned that there were a couple of books i was looking to read about what drove MMA fighters to do what they do.

The two books both focused on one particular fighter - Jens Pulver

The mind of a fighter

This first book is written by the man himself and focus' on his personal battles to get to where he is today. While it is not a long book, it will keep you mesmerized throughout, although there will be times where you wonder how he turned into the man he is.

In summary Pulver had a fairly horrendous childhood and only survived due to his strength of character and the love of his mother. The one thing that struck me about the book was the frank honesty that Pulver has for his own actions is refreshing. He is honest about the mistakes he made and the chances that he blew (and there were a few). Amidst the terrible events that he goes through in his life you see that he was blessed by having a number of coaches and trainers who saw his raw talent and helped to mould his raw talent into the destructive force that we all know

When you are reading this book there will be times where you will feel angry about the chances that did not work out, you will marvel at the strength and love of a mother, and start to understand the impact of a destructive childhood on the man.

Through the eyes of another

The second book (which I happened to read first) also has a focus on Jens Pulver but this time through the eyes of a friend who met him through the Wednesday Club. While the book is acutally about the club, the majority of the book focus' on Jens and what the club seemed to mean to him.

This book only briefly mentions his childhood, but rather focus' on the man as he is today. This book really lets you see the impact (both positive and negative) that a destructive childhood can have on a person.

There were two things that came out of this book for me. Firstly Pulver has always been a warrior, but the majority of his battles are within himself. Secondly - Pulver seems to have made it his mission to help anyone who is need, but he does not want to make a show of it.

Throughout the book the author (Timothy McKinnon) talks about the love that people have for Pulver and the love the Pulver returns to those that let him in. He is a taskmaster to those that he trains with but seems to be a fair man and does not expect anything from others that he does not give himself.

So what makes a fighter

Based on these can I provide any more thoughts on what makes a fighter? Well not really other than they tend to have big hearts (not literally) and an intensity in all that they do. Along side this drive to fight and to win there is a respect and understanding for all the people they fight and train with. There is little acrimony - it is a job and at the end of the fight you have respect for your opponent because he stood and gave his all.

Doesn't sound so thuggish after all, does it