Make me laugh you fat fool

I've often wondered what Karen saw in me, her simple answer is that I've always made her laugh. I told one of my mates here at work yesterday that I'd been in touch with an old girlfriend called Barbara Bell that I'd dated for a very short while at Edge Hill college (found her through the Friends reunited website), his reaction was "what does Karen think of that, my wife wouldn't approve" and it made me laugh. He spends most of his time dodging bullets from his wife, spends a lot of time "with the boys" and considers himself a mans man, whereas, in the last eighteen years I've found that I'm happier with the quieter life, sort of turned into a bit of a romantic (triggered by the Tenerife holiday that I have not told you about yet my opaque companions) and have become a one woman man, and I think that Karen knows this. I also know the inverse is true. I can comment to Karen that I find other women attractive, can be risqué and suggestive, but she knows who I am and also where the scissors are for when I'm sleeping.....

She's also agreed that I can have sex with any woman I want as long as I get the appropriate paperwork signed off, this makes for a long winded, bureaucratic, process which really takes the edge off any impulsive desires, plus I get the sneaking impression that she would hold off on the final signature.

I had been a draughtsman before the Edge Hill college experience and one day in early 1982 I was in a jobcentre in Kirkby, Lancashire and saw the job at APPH (Automotive Products, Precision Hydraulics) which was an aircraft landing gear company in Liverpool. That was a departure from drawing, more analytical which again suited my math based head.

Taking that job started the chain of events that led me here to Canada, because I had been a draughtsman they pushed me into the 3D computer work with Finite Element analysis, this was interesting, if not a little nerdy. type work. The stereotype being the humpbacked, bucktoothed, striped shirted geek, with the pocket protector and the high waistband. Ok, ok, so I was perfect for the job.....

They sent me down on a course to the head office in Leamington Spa for a while, which made me the company guru on the PATRAN analysis package. That's why I was picked to go over to Long Beach to represent the APPH stress office at McDonnell Douglas, I was supposed to go over there for two or three weeks and it ended up being 9 months.

While I was there I was offered a job at Menasco, Burbank. Another landing gear company, however, all was not as it seemed. I returned to the UK to process the paperwork with the US Consulate and was trapped in a "no visa, no job, no job, no visa" loop. When I returned to Long Beach I was also offered a job at McDonnell Douglas, but I believe my technical manager back in the UK found out and secretly scuppered the deal.

So, in early 1986 after a brief 2 weeks "Critical Design Review" at McDonnell Douglas, the entire US experience was over. That was probably one of the lowest points in my life, coupled with my global relationship dysfunction syndrome.

In early 1987 a designer friend of mine, Matt Hilliard, turned down a job and passed the phone to me. This was a Canadian contract company called Cantech who told me there was a Stress Analyst position at a company called Dowty in Ajax, Ontario. The long and short of that was they paid for the pair of us (once again we were a "unit" after the Tenerife "make or break" holiday) to emigrate, the consulate paperwork took six or so months, we arranged our marriage, whirlwind style in two weeks and had what was probably the best day of our lives. A month later, the frozen motel in Whitby, Ontario.

That was almost 17 years ago.