Simon Says...

Can you smell smoke?

2007-07-29T10:04:00.000+01:00

So last night i was sitting watching telly when i got a sniff of smoke... so i went round the house smelling each room to find the source of the smoke. at first i thought it was the oven or maybe even Jo's hair straighteners. the smell got more intense but there was nothing in the house so i opened the front door and was greeted by this scene!

the restaurant next door to us is being renovated and has had several large skips out the back of it over the last few months - last night their skip went up in flames!
my first reaction was to call the restaurant (its on speed dial) in hindsight it probably would've been better to call the fire brigade first....
my next call was 999.

after a few minutes they had it all sorted and the drama was over.....

So that was a little bit of excitement for our otherwise standard Saturday evening!

New TV

2007-07-19T17:33:00.000+01:00

we got a new TV yesterday.... 36" widescreen

i was joking with my boss that it would look great in my front room, if only i could get it up the stairs!
he said, "its yours for £50"
needless to say, we (lloyd and I) struggled with it up to the flat....

Its flippin huge!!!! i had to get Jo to pose next to it so you can get an idea of the scale!

Grow Your Own

2007-06-20T14:58:00.000+01:00

We worked on this film, it was edited on our 'quipment

Tagged by Scooby Dubai Doo!!!

2007-06-19T13:47:00.001+01:00

Well here goes.....

nearest book to me is.... MAC OS X Support essentials V10.4

"Anyone who logs in to your computer via SSH can run applications remotely, and secure FTP is automatically enabled when you enable remote login."

awesome stuff....

i tag:
Mercy on my soul

oh, this has been my 100th post!

Tagged by Scooby Dubai Doo!!!

2007-06-19T13:47:00.000+01:00

raising money

2007-05-16T18:26:00.000+01:00

Please help us raise loads of money for EIKON....

You may know that i'm not the most active person there is so a 15Km walk will be quite a challenge for me! its not the 15 peaks but hey its a start. please be really generous!!!

it's been a while

2007-05-12T17:54:00.000+01:00

Today Jo and i went shopping - now normally i don't like shopping with Jo, She doesn't let me spend money and she doesn't like looking at all the gadgets and games! I equally hate clothes shopping, so often our shopping trips have a couple of arguments as we each walk round the shops we dislike.
But today was different, we were shopping for presents! we love getting presents for people, it brings us both an enormous sense of well being (isn't that a line in a song...) The present we were buying today was perhaps the best type to get - 3 years and up! It's Elijah Kinsleys Birthday on Monday and we always like getting him things.

We visited toys R us, it was fantastic - i felt like a little kid again, trying out everything i could see. At one point i got lost, Jo went off somewhere and i couldn't find her - so that made me feel all the more like a small child!

we found just the right thing! i won't spoil the surprise... its well cool though, Jo has tried it out in the house already!

other than that things are going swimmingly around here, we had great weekend at roots, it was great to see lots of friends and genreally feel like we were making a difference!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, i'll do my best to write some more on here....

i'll try to do my best

2007-05-11T19:35:00.001+01:00

I will try and write a blog entry this weekend

A quick round up...

2007-03-21T13:57:00.000Z

its been a little while since i last posted so here's a quick round up of events.

We went away for the weekend to celebrate our wedding anniversary - it was really nice, we stayed in the hotel that Jo's sister Sarah works in (so we got a very good deal on the price!)
We picked up the new car over the same weekend which is great, it drives well, doesn't feel like its falling to bits and looks all new and shiney too!

i had a day off and played some golf which was fun and then i popped into elucid8 and joined them for lad's lunch - a weekly trip to the chinese which i really miss in my new job!
It was good to see those guys again.

last friday night me, Lloyd and Taff went to topgolf and had a couple of games, it was good fun, we need to do that again and soon!

we headed back to the k's to watch comic relief, it was a good evening.

Saturday i played golf with my Dad as usual, me and Jo spent the afternoon together and then we to guildford to have coffee with Lu.

Sunday, mothers day was spent with My mum, we took her out for lunch and then took the dog for a long walk in the woods in the afternoon. a chilled day!

since then i have had a headache - i've felt really run down and tired. i've not had any coffee or coke (two of my favorite drinks) since saturday so i think thats probably to blame for me feeling rubbish!

and now as i sit at work wondering what to do with the rest of my day, at least i am safe in the knowledge that the blog is up to date!

bye for now

4 Years and Counting!

2007-03-08T10:03:00.000Z

Today is our 4th Wedding anniversary.

4 years of marriage have been fantastic, i'm a very lucky boy. saying "i love you loads" isn't really enough to truly express how i feel about my beautiful wife.

I could write a whole list of heart felt things telling you how amazing my wife is, but its probably best that i say them to her.

i will just publicly say this...

I'm your biggest fan, i'm your loyal supporter and without you i'm not up to much!

thank you for the last 4 years - here's to the next 4 years and beyond!

love you,

x

Some people can be cruel!

2007-03-05T20:47:00.000Z

Even in the world of YouTube, below are two vids.... the first is a time lapse of a talented person showing off their photoshop skills.

the second is someone taking the mick out of that talented person (made me chuckle....)

New Car

2007-03-05T12:24:00.000Z

This weekend, Jo and I bought a new car...

Annoyingly we can't have it till next weekend, its having its bumpers sprayed.

looking forward to more traffic on the M25 in this bad boy!

stuck in traffic.... what to do, what to do????

2007-03-04T23:14:00.000Z

Well, something i've never ever done before - friday night on my way home i called a radio station!

Why i did it i have no idea, never really thought i'd get through. I called Iain Lee on LBC 97.3

I don't think i'll ever do it again, but it passed the time on friday.

Have a listen HERE (many thanks to my mate Mr Lam for supplying the link)\

http://home.clara.net/knightmare/Simon_LBC.mp3

Fun enough for you?!

2007-02-28T18:17:00.000Z

Jo said that my laptop being out of action was no excuse for posting boring comments......

So, what better way to make my friends and family laugh than with pictures of my hairy face!

poorly laptop

2007-02-28T16:13:00.000Z

Here is a pic my laptop....

Its back at the factory now being looked at in more detail

Laptop troubles

2007-02-24T17:33:00.000Z

Hello,

sorry for not posting for a while - my laptop died, its all gone very bad!

I'll post a pic when i figure out how to get it off my phone....

I'll try and get back into this soon, sorry to the three of you that check this.

much love to all

Final Cut Pro

2007-02-07T19:58:00.000Z

This week i've been on a final cut pro course, (its an editing program) it's been really good. three days learning the ins and outs of one of the preffered systems out there used in the media industry.

It was based at clear cut pictures which is the mother ship of the group of companies that i'm employed by.
Man i wish i worked there all the time! its very fashionable, trendy, nice leather sofas and all that. there's an in house chef - they send runners round to the edit suites asking what you'd like off the menu! swanky!

I was sitting doing some editing and a runner came in and without saying anything to me, she just place a plate of biscuits next to me. Fantastic!

Today was the last day of the course, lunchtime today clearcut laid on lunch for everyone in the building, very nice indeed - I stayed clear of the salmon, i'm not a big fan really.

anyway tomorrow i'm back to pinewood to put all the stuff i've learnt into practice.

bye for now,

This week

2007-02-01T10:43:00.000Z

I have a cold this week which is rubbish - all bunged up and feeling sorry for myself!

this week at work is going well, I've been to the arsenal football ground to install some stuff for the Outside broadcast people for sky sports the game was on last night Arsenal v tottenham and the equipment comes out this morning. it was a good experience - we were only doing a small part of the setup but it was still good to see the top end of Hi-Def broadcast in action! (sorry for the tech ramble there...)

we no longer have the BMW it sold for a massive £155! which is superb, it covers some bills which is a good thing.
We now have an old 306, its a family car which we are borrowing off my father-in-law. we will still need to buy our own car sometime soon but at least i have transport to work for a little while!

i had pizza twice yesterday, didn't tell Jo last night that we had it for lunch in the office, she had bought a tesco pizza with dough balls, twas lovely but no more pizza for a for days at least!

tonight is TIZ night, an evening that Lloyd and I spend with some of new haws finest youths for all kinds of fun, including dodge ball! I'm running a video master class at the same time, man those kids get bored with my ramblings! its all good fun though, we enjoy it when we get there - we often go to lloyd and becky's after for a little drink (or two) which always helps.

right, i should do some work... bye for now.

Say What?!

2007-01-22T20:52:00.000Z

BMW lost numbers and DVD's

2007-01-22T15:14:00.000Z

So a blog post... its been a while, for that i can only apologise!
It's strange not spending much time on the Internet - having said that, a good deal of my day is spent on computers but these computers don't have an Internet connection so not much fun other than for the job they are designed to do.

So any free time surfing the web has been cut down to a minimum these days - i tend to check emails and read other peoples blogs and that's about it!
anyway enough with the excuses i hear you cry!

a few things from the past few weeks:
two years ago i attended the wedding of Phil and Jenny Hoyle - a beautiful day all round. my job for the day was to film the occasion as a keep sake for when the happy couple are old and grey/bald and want to keep the grandchildren bored.
And so i filmed the ceremony and the speeches.... and did nothing else! the tapes have sat in a drawer in my house since the happy day and never made it onto my computer or even onto a usable format for the Hoyles to view it on. (how crappy am i?!)
the good news is that a week or so ago i sent Phil two copies of the wedding on DVD - i made use of some of the equipment around my new office and did what i should have done a long time ago. Phil and Jenny, i do apologise - hope its not too rubbish?!

our lovely BMW banger is up for auction! yes all of you out there who have look on at the wonderful machine with envious eyes can now bid to your hearts content to own this old bag of bolts that sounds a bit like chitty chitty bang bang! (altogether now..... oh you pretty chitty bang bang, chitty chitty bang bang we love you..) starting bid is £9.99.

work is going OK, very slow, so lots of time to pick a random piece of technical kit off the shelf and work out how to break it and then make it work again. I'm gradually working my way through everything. at least when its slow round here there's a fair amount of stuff you can see going on - I'd take some photos to show you how manic it gets round here but I'd get in heaps of trouble for taking pictures (and tonnes more if i put them on t'internet!)

every day i walk from the car park outside the TV studios through to my office. on the side of one of the buildings i pass there is a number counter, which has always reminded my of lost. i have no idea what these numbers are there for or indeed what they represent but most days there is a different number, 00000400, 00000600, 00000750 .... and so on, one morning i walked down the road and there was a buzzing coming from the numbers and a siren was going off - it seemed to be stuck on 00000006. i stood looking at it for a minute to see what would happen next (but then decided to move on before too many people caught a glimpse at me being strange)
I think someone somewhere forgot to press the button that day. its not done it since though!

anyway, I'll stop going on - I'll try and add some more posts sooner rather than later,

2007-01-08T19:42:00.000Z

No Idea why my last post had such a crappy layout... sorry about that,

normal service will resume shortly!

hello hello

2007-01-05T21:51:00.000Z

Hello one and all! Happy New Year to you!

I know its a rather late entry in to 2007 for this blog but we are here now so
lets get on with things!

The Christmas break was great, i had a really swell time with friends and family -
not to mention some QT with Jo. i was blessed with some rather nice presents
which included west wing, golf clubs, PS2 games and accessories. The best of these
(most thoughtful and planned) came of course from Jo. over a number of months she
bought DVD's to replace the old VHS copies i had of the films.
fantastic! I've been wanting to do that for years!

Been back to work for a little while and thats going well - I'm getting into the
swing of things now, working out how things work and how people work!

Last night, our TV died! how annoying - we only bought it three years ago and spent
lots on it! I've bodged something together in the front room for the next little
while until we know what to do. Anyone got a free 32" widescreen TV going?!

this year i am trying to keep a bit of a diary/journal thingy - now i know a blog
is kind of doing that anyway but i'm sure the few visitors to this site will become
fewer if i write diary journal type stuff! well we will see how long that lasts for
now I'm quite enjoying it.

I Do love this part of the year - you have space to dream big dreams and plan big
things and hope that by the end of the year you're a better person than when it stared!
Bring it on i say to you, bring it on!

a quick update...

2006-12-19T22:36:00.000Z

So today i got lost a television centre! not getting to it but actually in it - the place is huge!!!

Since the first few days at my new job i've been meeting new clients; often with actual tech work to do but occasionally to hand out christmas gifts! a nice way to meet people "hello i'm the new boy - heres some wine!"

A few of the places i've been:
i've been to zeal productions, fox tv, BBC news, hewlands international, endemaol, edge TV and there are others that i can't remember!
Lots of nice creative types who are very good at what they do and like the equipment they use to work in the best way possible!

I've spent a fair amount of time in the office learning all about the avid systems, how they work, how to break them and how to fix them again. (I've never needed help in breaking computers... that's always been a natural thing for me) in fact the other day i made one break and the first thing that one of my co workers said was "I've never seen one of these do that before!"

the studios are busy busy busy. one film has packed up for Christmas so that end has quietened down quite a lot whereas the two stages near us are very busy - I'm thinking they are getting them all set to start filming in January. there are lots of props and bits of set being transported about the place on either old milk floats or on quad bikes with trailers. some of the trailers are driven round a bit on the quick side and there have been a few near misses with some of the cars parked about the place.

well there are two more days left till my Christmas hols start woo and indeed hoo!

i'll take up the challenge lloyd

2006-12-16T19:07:00.000Z

so here goes.... 5 things you didn't know about me. taken from lloyds blog

1. When i was 3 i used to hang out with the grounds keeper and would pretend to make roll ups.

2. At school i won the "services to the college" award.

3. I once nearly bit my sisters finger off

4. I was a page boy once and insisted on carrying the bridesmaids flowers into the church

5. I went through a car park barrier without putting my ticket in the machine (i must concentrate more when driving)

And so, to a new beginning

2006-12-12T22:10:00.000Z

Yesterday i started my new job! i joined the never ending queue of cars that circle London everyday and left it at the m40 junction. another 5 minutes along the country lanes to Iver Heath and i arrived at pinewood. i was a little later than planned so i rushed through the rigmarole of getting through security without a site pass.
I walked through the lot to the props building and on through to my new office. there was only one guy in so we had a coffee and he showed me round. the boss man arrived a bit later and we did all the usual things you do on the first day - another tour round the office and talk of lunchtimes keys, alarm codes, etc.

i spent the rest of the day being introduced to work people and two of the editing systems - AVID adrenaline and AVID Media Composer. still lots to learn on both of these but hey its a start (and you have to start somewhere)
The boss and tech manager took me out for lunch which was nice - they took me on a little walk round to show me a few places worth knowing. the post room the coffee shop etc. we bumped into a dozen elves walking from the canteen to a sound stage; there is a film being made for next Christmas called Fred Claus.
more of the same in the afternoon, and home fairly late. i was well tired!

Today I started the day by leaving a little earlier to try and get through the M25 a little quicker. it worked! i arrived in Iver Heath 2o minutes early so i stopped at the local co op and got some fruit and a pastry for breakfast. I headed up to the studios and had a nice chat with the receptionist who helpfully sorted me out a couple of passes, one for me and one for my car - we are both now allowed on the site!

I was first in today so i had to rack my brain to remember the darn alarm code, all was OK though i managed fine.
this morning i set up a new system and messed with hard drives and things and then we all had pizza together.
in the afternoon i went to clearcut pictures i met the boss man and we had a wander round the edit suites. we had to see a client who has some kit out on hire. they are making a film called "Capturing Mary" i met the assistant editor and the editing assistant it was great to see the systems being used.

then we went over to another client who make some of the extreme makeover type of programmes.

back to the office, lots of kerfuffle outside the office, there are two features being filmed on the sound stages opposite. the new Matt Damon film bourne ultimatum and i think a film with johnny depp in.
So lots of bangs and bells ringing etc plus general building site noise as they put sets together and all that.

and that brings us up to the present. the first two days have been good, i'm quite tired but i'm sure it wont be long before i'm back in the swing of 11 hour working days...
i'll post some more when there is more to report!

thanks for the text messages for those sent yesterday - they were much appreciated. sorry if i didn't reply.

My Space

2006-12-08T11:24:00.000Z

I've only just realised what a huge thing this myspace business is all about! man there are a lot of people in that thing.

So not one to be left behind, i have a myspace account. you can find me at:

myspace.com/si_graham

myspace tells me I have 15 friends, which is nice.

The end of Elucid8...

2006-12-08T11:16:00.000Z

...well my part anyway.

Today is my last day at elucid8, time has gone very quickly since accepting my new job - today i find myself finishing off last minute things and generally tidying up after myself!

I was taken out for a lovely send off meal yesterday, I'll miss the meals we so often go out for!

This morning was my last meeting with Matt and Barry at the local coffee shop, brownies all round from me. They didn't give me a free coffee though, would've been a nice send off being as I've spent far too much money in there over the last few years.

All that's left for me to do is an event on Sunday before i start the new job on Monday. I'm looking forward to it!

I'll try and be a bit more proactive with the blog posts (that's if there is anything interesting to share)

thanks Elucid8 boys, I'll miss you - it's been grand!

you could hear both pennies dropping miles away!

2006-11-28T16:37:00.000Z

It was only a few days ago that i realised that i wont have the same employer come Christmas time. so i made a quick call to my new boss to find out what the deal is for time off around Christmas.
I felt a little bit cheeky booking days off when i haven't even started working there yet. it was all good though, seems a fairly chilled kind of guy.

the other thing i only just realised is that our current car tax runs out at the end of January. i was under the impression it ran out at the end of February - so we have one month less to sort out our transport situation.

you may remember from an earlier post that we had to get the BMW banger quite quickly as a stop-gap solution till the new year. well now that new year is upon us we need to work out if its best to ditch the banger and buy either a new(er) car, or ditch it and get another banger, or the third option is to keep the banger and see how well it fairs through the rocky road of MOT.

If anyone has a car they don't want anymore..... give me a shout!

anyway, there we have two moments this last week where i heard a huge penny drop and slapped myself in the forehead in a "stupid boy" kind of way.

Moving on

2006-11-21T13:42:00.000Z

I've have been working for Elucid8 for nearly three and a half years but now is the time to move on.
I've been looking around at various job prospects over the last few months, keeping my options open; looking at a wide variety of job descriptions and companies. As the saying goes "the world is a lobster" or something like that anyways.

So, where am i going i hear you all ask?! I am making a move into the world of TV and Film. The BBC doesn't want me but someone else does!

I'll be working for a company that supply editing systems to production people in either film or TV.

I'll be based at Pinewood Studios but will probably spend a lot of my time out and about visiting production houses and filming locations, also larger outside broadcast events that need on site editing facilities - sports events etc.

My job has the original title of Hires Technician. I start work on the 11th December.

Its going to be tough to leave Elucid8 for a number of reasons, of course the biggest of these is that i will miss Matt, Barry, Phil, Tim and Mark - we have a great working relationship together and i don't think that will be replicated in my new job or any other job for that matter! They are my friends and i shall miss them.

So here's to the Future, i hope that Elucid8 goes on from strength to strength and i hope that this new job of mine will be fulfilling, challenging and inspiring (that's not too much to ask is it?!)

For those that do, please pray for me that the next three months will be all i hope it will be, and that Elucid8 will cope without me.

i hope Elucid8 manage to find a suitable person to hold the position of "Elucid8 life committee chairman" a responsibility not to be taken lightly, you need broad shoulders and thick skin to cope at the top!

Sorry to those that i haven't told personally - i wanted you to hear it from the horses mouth so i figured the blog would be a good start!

Let me call you sweetheart

2006-11-16T18:40:00.000Z

Yes i know its another lazy post but after seeing the orange advert featuring the audio from a funny laurel and hardy sketch i thought it was about time we re educated ourselves!!!

Ninja algorithm

2006-11-08T20:43:00.000Z

Last.fm

2006-11-07T15:10:00.000Z

You'll notice that under my flickr images there is a new box of stuff...

Its a list of the tracks I've been listening to and the tracks I'm listening to at that very moment - cool huh?

it lets you connect to lots of other people and their playlists - it also has a cool thing that gives loads of interesting info on the track/band you are listening to for example:

"Foo Fighters began as a solo project taken up by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl after Kurt Cobain's death. On the debut and eponymous album, Foo Fighters, released in 1995, Grohl plays all the instruments (save for one guitar part recorded by Greg Dulli on X-Static). However, Grohl subsequently formed a band to play live shows and support the album. At that time, the band consisted of Grohl (vocals, guitar, occasional drums), Nate Mendel (bass), Pat Smear (guitar) and William Goldsmith (drums). However, after a dispute with Goldsmith, Grohl fired the drummer and recorded the percussion... "

Tis nice - I like!

Ikea, again - do we have to?!

2006-11-02T10:17:00.000Z

So last night saw another trip to Ikea - I'm really starting to hate that place. the reason for our numerous trips to the blue and yellow store is that Jo is single handily refurbishing her office!
I have had to go along to lift the heavy stuff onto the trolleys.

Last nights heavy stuff were 4 shelving units and 4 sofa's! now the shelves weren't too much of a bother for my rippling muscles but the sofas were another story!

The sofas in question come kind of flat packed, but not really, and are delivered to ikea on wooden pallets in sets of four. all perfectly held together with straps and tape etc.
I asked one of the oh-so-helpful staff members if he could assist us by taking one of the pallets to the checkout and then through to the delivery area. He said that this was not possible and we would have to put them on the customer trolleys. So i went to work! cutting the pallet straps and tape which caused the four tightly packed sofas to take a deep breath and fill all the lovely foam filled cushions with air. The things were twice the size that they were a minute ago!
I quickly managed to get two of them jammed onto one trolley with much swearing and cursing at the sofas and trolley and any other person who got too close to me, or stood too long watching me do the tango with the two sofas and a trolley.
the last two were not in the slightest bit flat packed any more so they had to have a trolley each. so from here Jo and i with four trolleys (one full of plant pots) made our way to the checkout. My blood was boiling!

Let me take you back to the start of our Ikea trip - there is one thing i forgot to mention.

So we arrive and i am desperate for the loo, we had been sitting in traffic for ages and my kidneys were starting to hurt. I made a beeline for the Loo and to my horror found that there were no cubicles free. (those who know me will know that i MUST use a cubicle.... extreme stage fright sets in otherwise)
but there was no one using the urinals and i was desperate so i thought id manage OK. everything was going well but in the background i heard one of the cubicle doors open and from it came a guy with his young son. the conversation between them went:

Boy: Daddy what are they?
Dad: Leave those they are dirty, come over here and wash your hands.

from the corner of my eye i could see this young boy peeking into the furthest urinal, he then proceeded to go along the line having a look in each one. by this time his Dad was over by the sinks washing his hands.

i did my best to ignore all this and concentrate on the job in hand. the thing was that this kid kept getting closer! it got to the point where the young boy had looked in all the free urinals by which point he was standing next to me. (by the way, it was about this point that I'd realised i was having the biggest wee of my life...)
to my horror this little chap decided he wanted to see what was going on in my urinal! he tried to poke his head round and get a good look. I managed to turn my body enough to block him from getting his head wet. (where was his Dad?! - had he forgotten about him or something!)
thankfully he went away and i was able to finish what i was doing.

I am never using a urinal again!

one positive outcome was that i was able to use the XLerator again - wicked!

Musical Mashing

2006-10-29T17:11:00.000Z

Caught this on TMF the other day... some very nice musical mashing!

Bit o' Green Day, a fair amount of Oasis, a drizzle of Travis, with a dash of Eminem.

Enjoy!

XLent

2006-10-25T10:11:00.000+01:00

The regular readers among you may remember a while back I posted about putting hand dryers into room 101 - especially the hand dryers that do little more than breath heavily on you.

Well last night i had the privilege of using the best hand dryer i have ever seen! Jo and I were at IKEA, on my visit to the loo there was an incredibly loud noise - from my cubicle i assumed it was some kind of cleaner being used to unblock a sink or something.

I washed my hands and ventured to the dryers and that's when i got my first glimpse of the XLerator! this thing was fantastic - an immense sound, it rippled the skin on the back of my hands.

"Hand dryer motor shall be a series commutated through-flow discharge vacuum motor/blower (5/8 HP / 20,000 RPM) which provides air velocity of 16,000 LFM (linear feet per minute) at the air outlet and 14,000 LFM at the hands (4 inches [102 mm] below air outlet)."

I tried to get Jo to visit the loo to see if the Ladies had the same machine - She wasn't that bothered...

Truly the best dryer ever - i fear that now I've experience the XLerator I'm never going to be satisfied with any other hand dryer.

Stag do

2006-10-22T22:36:00.000+01:00

This weekend i spent some time at a stag do. The stag this time round was Andy Irons. We did the usual evening at the curry house and then had a sleep over at the local church. On Saturday we visited "Go Ape!" which is one of those swinging from the trees on high wires type of affairs.

We made Andy dress up as a gorilla (how original?!) and below you can catch one of the funniest moments - Andy in his suit on the smallest of the rope slides!

What do you look like?!

2006-10-20T14:19:00.000+01:00

A good friend of mine Andy Mackay is soon to be running the New York marathon. he is one of hose fitness freaks who does all kinds of things. He's run the London marathon and completed the 15 peaks challenge.

So now he's doing the new york marathon which is 10k. easy!

Andy is making it a little harder for himself by running in a rhino suit! now that is crazy!

have a look here and sponsor him to raise money for a worthy cause.
(he hasn't raised much yet... go on help him and the Rhinos out.)

EDIT:
Now Andy has just seen this blog entry and got all hot under the collar because the Marathon is 26.2 miles and not 10k he says "what are you on about 10k.... i sleep walk more than 10k!"

The suit he is wearing weighs 10kg, that probably where i got it from... Sorry Mackay, take a chill pill!

ebay Success

2006-10-16T16:20:00.000+01:00

you will all be pleased to know that after selling various items on eBay i have almost managed to cover the entire cost of my new monitor - which is nice.

my next challenge is to sell some of the things around the office not being used anymore (and before you all think I'm tying to sell work equipment for my own gain - Matt asked me to!)

new monitor

2006-10-11T10:48:00.000+01:00

This week i purchased a new 19" widescreen monitor for our home PC.

It replaces an older 15" monitor which wasn't really up to the task any more.

Sadly i missed the delivery man so had to venture into a large industrial estate and find the warehouse to pick it up late last night.

Now this would probably be Steve C's worst nightmare, it made Argos look like a day at the races!

It took ages and ages, lots of people waiting around for the little people to come out with arms full of boxes and things to hand out.

Whatever you do, don't try and pick an item up without ID - it makes the little people go crazy!

Anyways the new monitor is in at home and looks spanky! To pay for the new screen i am selling lots of things on eBay (which may need to include my left kidney) so take a look and buy something if you like!

Portacabin postings

2006-10-05T13:49:00.000+01:00

You may remember a while back i talked about the large portacabin being replaced at the alove/Elucid8 office. I had a few photos on my Flickr about it all.

Well Jo pointed out to me today that the images on google earth have been updated, so i took a look at the office.

It turns out that the day they took the photos was the day for all the cranes and lorrys and stuff - check it out... the postcode is SM4 5BY.

You can make out the two big lorry's parked on the curb with the cabin on and the crane folded up in the drive next door.

If i'd have known i would have waved or something.

Everybodys got to learn somehow!

2006-09-28T13:25:00.000+01:00

The Internet is a marvelous thing... Just in case you didn't know...

Room 101

2006-09-22T12:35:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking of things that i would banish to room 101 for all eternity if i had the choice.

Mine would have to be hand dryers in public toilets. Particularly the ones that really don't do anything, those ones that have about as much power in them as somebody breathing heavily! what a waste of time and money - you end up having to wave your hands vigorously in the air (which does more to dry them than the dryer!) or find a suitable piece of clothing to dry them on.

Even worse than this - knowing that the dryer i am approaching to dry my hands will probably be useless, as i place my hands under the dryer expecting something to happen.... NOTHING!!! the thing either doesn't work or has been turned off or whatever; you end up hunting for the one that works which undoubtedly will have a queue of people all waving their hands about and subtly drying them on the person in front!

so that's got my vote. What would you put in room 101?

I'm Superman

2006-09-18T13:50:00.000+01:00

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman		75%
Green Lantern		70%
Spider-Man		70%
Robin		62%
Catwoman		60%
Batman		50%
Hulk		50%
Iron Man		45%
The Flash		45%
Supergirl		40%
Wonder Woman		30%

You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

John Foley

2006-09-15T12:03:00.000+01:00

I'd like to draw your attention to this guys photography work. I read an article about his work especially the shots where he recreates 17th century style master pieces in digital format with photoshop manipulation.

Often his creations are composites of several shots which can take months or even years to find all the elements needed to create his original idea.

I'd love to be able to take such great photo's and have the ability to do so much more with them through computer manipulation. He has just opened his own shop in Suffolk selling his work.

check out the website for more shots.

I'm going to have a go with some of my photos when i get round to it to see what sort of thing i can do - who knows what might come out with such fantastic inspiration!

Blogger Troubles

2006-09-13T17:05:00.000+01:00

I'm having problems with my blog, in fact i think i caused them by signing up to some google thing or other....

whatever it is that's happened is preventing people from being able to post comments - two or three people (two or three Si? surely you mean everyone who reads this blog...) have mentioned they haven't been able to post comments.

So sorry about that if it is cause you distress - I'm not quite sure what to do to solve the problem.

it's the shizzle!

2006-09-12T14:33:00.000+01:00

This is a thing that been round for a while - but i decided to see what my blog looks like after being gizoogled

It made me laugh very much...

a couple of highlights:

"So last night Jo's cracka n her boyfriend stayed over on they way ta tha airport on holiday. Emily made us wizzatch "life begins" W-H-to-tha-izzich is a new sitcom `bout 40 sum-m sum-ms or sum-m sum-m, i dunno...

There was one line which i found brotha F-U-Double-Nizzy n hopefully, if i rememba to, i W-to-tha-izzill try n use it me in day ta day conversizzles . Aint no stoppin' this shit nigga."

And from Lards blog....

"This morn'n baller dropp'n becks off at schoo` I popped into Tescos ta pick up a few perpetratin'. The checkout lady started rapping ta Elijah as most do n normally I shut off wha they’re actually say'n cos pack'n is neva eazy wit a child in tow fo' rizeal. For some reason there’s thugz there ta help motha wit they bizzags, but clearly we’re so manly we can entertain n pizzy on our own . Im a bad boy wit a lotta hos. Anyway . I started yo shit and i'll end yo' shit. . "

sorry for some of the language in it, but i find it funny...

You'll all be trying it - go on, give it a go!

Old friends

2006-09-12T14:27:00.000+01:00

I've spent a bit of time today catching up with an old friend from Uni. Emily now lives in America with her husband Drew.

It has been really cool to briefly catch up, I'll try not to leave it too long before saying hello next time!

Its important to keep in touch with friends far and near - i challenge you all to go through your contacts list and your MSN contacts list and send a quick message to an old friend.

What harm can it do?! Spread the love people!

A funny thing...

2006-09-05T09:23:00.000+01:00

Sorry for no posts for a while - i have been away in Devon.

So last night Jo's sister and her boyfriend stayed over on their way to the airport on holiday. Emily made us watch "life begins" which is a new sitcom about 40 somethings or something, i dunno...

There was one line which i found rather funny and hopefully, if i remember to, i will try and use it myself in day to day conversation.

".... you're about as much use as a fart in a peddle bin!"

now I'm not sure why this tickled me - perhaps it's because the word "fart" was used who knows.

I will soon post pics of our trip to Devon, although Lloyd will probably bit me to it with a much cooler presentation of photos i have no doubt!

"I told you so...."

2006-08-19T19:46:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, Jo finished her job at Kier. So to celebrate we had a take away curry (I'd hoped we could have gone out for one, but that's another story...)
It was lovely! Our cat was very interested in the curry and looked longingly at the feast in front of him.
Jo spent most of the time pushing the cat away whilst i back handed him the odd bit of sauce, topped off with a nice bit of chicken i saved him at the end - he lapped it up! All the while Jo was telling me off saying that he would be sick and if he is, i would be cleaning it up.

Now the sharp readers amongst you can probably see where this is going - sadly i didn't see where i was going (or should i say treading!)

This morning i got up and made my way to the kitchen and in my sleepy state i didn't see the little presents on the floor - i stepped, bare foot into piles of cat sick, not once but twice!

"I told you so" said Jo from the bedroom. The cat was curled up in the spare room and gave me a look as if to say "you gave me curry last night and I've been up all night puking - crank!"

After clearing up eight piles of sick i vowed never to give the cat curry again.

Sorry cat.

Happy Birthday!!

2006-08-18T10:40:00.000+01:00

Can we all stand and sing a rousing rendition of happy birthday to my blog - 1 year old today.

I hope that it will continue and not die out like other blogs out there.

Camping Holiday

2006-08-15T14:55:00.000+01:00

Just spent a long weekend in the lake district with the Kinsley's. It was really good fun.

We bought a new tent just before going away so we were trying that out for the first time - and the K's picked up a bargain of a tent on ebay.
So we all tried our best to put the two tents up as efficiently as possible (trying to look like we've done hundreds of times before) there were lots of people on the site so we knew that some people would be keeping an eye on what we were doing!

4 quick photos of the weekend (for those who can't view Flikr)

We enjoyed a day at the zoo.

Our two wonderfully assembled tents!

Beautiful sunsets

But it was fairly cold!

i'm looking forward to the next camping trip! anyone else up for it?!

Easy Rider

2006-08-08T19:21:00.000+01:00

Following on from Lloyds blog....

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

47

2006-08-01T17:07:00.000+01:00

why send me that!

2006-08-01T14:30:00.000+01:00

Now i'm not a fan of spiders - in fact i can't stand them. so why on earth would someone want to send me this in an email?!

(thats a full size dinner plate....)

A true story and its source was the Australian Quarantine Inspection
> > Service in Adelaide.
> > A bloke and his family were on holidays in the United States and went to
> > México for a week. An avid cactus fan, the man bought one-metre high,
> > rare and expensive cactus there. On arrival back home Australian Customs
> > said it must be quarantined for 3 months.
> > He finally got his cactus home. Planted it in his backyard, and over
> > time
> > it grew to about 2 metres. One evening while watering his garden after a
> > warm spring day, he gave the cactus a light spray. He was amazed to see
> > the plant shiver all over, he gave it another spray and it shivered
> > again. He was puzzled so he rang the council who put him on to the state
> > gardens people. After a few transfers he got the state's foremost cactus
> > expert who asked him many questions. How tall is it? Has it flowered?
> > Etc.
> > Finally he asked the most disturbing question. "Is your family in the
> > house?" The bloke answered yes. The cactus expert said get out of the
> > house NOW, get on to the front nature strip and wait for me; I will be
> > there in 20 minutes.
> > Fifteen minutes later, 2 fire trucks, 2 police cars and an ambulance
> > came
> > screaming around the corner. A fireman got out and asked "Are you the
> > bloke with the cactus?" I am, he said. A guy jumped out of the fire
> > truck
> > wearing what looked like a space suit, a breathing cylinder and mask
> > attached to what looked like a scuba backpack with a large hose
> > attached.
> > He headed for the backyard and turned a flame-thrower on the cactus
> > spraying it up and down.
> > After a few minutes the flame-thrower man stopped, the cactus stood
> > Smoking and spitting, half the fence was burnt and parts of the gardens
> > were well and truly scorched. Just then the cactus expert appeared and
> > laid a calming hand on the bloke's shoulder. "What the hell's going on?"
> > he says. "Let me show you" says the cactus man. He went over to the
> > cactus and picked away a crusty bit, the cactus was almost entirely
> > hollow and filled with tiger striped bird-eating tarantula spiders, each
> > about the size of two hand spans.
> > The story was that this type of spider lays eggs in this type of cactus
> > and they hatch and live in it as they grow to full size. When full size
> > they release themselves. The cactus just explodes and about 150 dinner
> > plate sized hairy spiders are flung from it, dispersing everywhere. They
> > had been ready to pop. The aftermath was that the house and the
> > adjoining
> > houses had to be vacated and fumigated: police tape was put up outside
> > the whole area and no one was allowed in for two weeks.

Congratulations!

2006-07-21T10:04:00.000+01:00

Jo had an interview yesterday for a new job - and she got it!
The job role is office manager for EIKON
Jo will start this job in about a months time when she finished building tesco's store in addlestone. She had a shift at the local co-op last night and handed her notice in straight away which she has been wanting to do for ages!

So please, if you get the chance send her your congratulations - she deserves it!

Newsround up

2006-07-14T21:37:00.000+01:00

Sorry its been a while - I did promise news and I know for some of you the wait has been horrible.
Now is the point where I have to warn you that the news is nothing but trivia - nothing really big (sorry)

So lets crack on....

the other week our car had its MOT and sadly it failed terribly! They (the wizards...) said it wasn't worth the cost of the repairs! Oh dear...
So we were in a bit of a fix for transport and after two days of commuting to Morden via train I'd had enough - we had to get a car!

Yes here it is a BMW 3 series. £250 bargain!! Please note the added cable ties to the bumper - essential to keep it attached!
It sounds like an old camper van but it has got me to work for a couple of weeks now so I'm not complaining.

Jo and I were out at the shops the other day (which has become more and more rare in recent weeks) we popped into Millets looking for a new tent. We got an absolute bargain, got a big old tent for about half price, roll on august when we try it out for the first time.

speaking of the tent... Last Friday I was at home alone - Jo was having another girly night with a couple of girls who missed the massive sleep over do at ours. So I settled down to watch some Ray miers. He's a middle class bush man, knows lots about tree and things.
This programme inspired me, and being as I had a bit of time to kill I decided to have a look at this new tent of ours.

Now some of you will know that we have a rather large front room so I gave it a go!

it was a challenge, in fact half way through I thought why am I doing this?! But there we go. I had it all packed up and back to normal. So much so that when Jo got back she said "you haven't moved off that sofa" - "I flippin well have" I exclaimed showing photographic evidence!

Last Sunday we had a family gathering at our place, we fired up the BBQ and had a rather nice afternoon. My mother-in-law fell asleep on the sofa.

hope that's brought you up to speed on a few things...

following suit

2006-07-06T16:47:00.000+01:00

Hello - here is my Blog Cloud, i'm following in Hoylus and Tom's footsteps...
More blogs to follow soon, lots to tell you about!

Disturbing Scene...

2006-06-19T18:45:00.000+01:00

I've just arrived home for the evening and found a rather disturbing site!

I went into the spare room to say hello to Jo and found the following sitting on the computer chair...

here lies our marriage certificate and my passport next to a petrol can!

When I asked Jo what was going on she said "oh I'm just tidying some things up"

I think she may be trying to get rid of me!

A stroll in the country

2006-06-16T23:04:00.000+01:00

This evening Jo and i went for a walk to test out a possible route for an up coming fundraiser for eikon.
We went to the north downs way and did about an 8 mile circuit of the area. it was really good to do, a nice end to the week.
A highlight was seeing lots of animals - we saw a bunch of badgers which was prety cool, got a photo but the thing ran off as i took it.

Jo got a fly in her eye which was a bit of a drama for five minutes or so.

we finished just as it got dark - 2 and a half hours it took. I'm tired now!

check out some shots on the flikr

The future of mobile phones

2006-06-14T10:11:00.000+01:00

"The device works with the sense of smell, sight, hearing and touch. The user experiences communication on a multi-sensory level. It can detect, transmit and omit smell. It can also radiate colours, light and temperature from a caller's environment."

I give this phone a week in your pocket before it breaks!

News flash

2006-06-09T11:45:00.000+01:00

Exciting activities today at work...

the old ALOVE/youth ministry unit/mission team portacabin has been removed and as I write this is being replaced by a brand spanking new one.

check out some pics on my flickr of the old one being removed - hopefully we will put some pics up of the new one coming in.

got to go now as they are evacuating our cabins for health and safety reasons!

lets have a quick moment of reflection on all the experiences I'm sure that many of us have shared in that big old brown box. - perhaps post a comment of your most memorable time in said box...

who put that there?!

2006-05-27T21:24:00.000+01:00

I crashed the car today...

not very happy...

going to need to replace the bumper.....

its all very annoying.

641 miles

2006-05-24T19:02:00.000+01:00

I've spent the last 48hours on a bit of a road trip!

I'm filming some stuff for a video which involves interviewing people from all over the place.
yesterday I got up fairly early and headed west. I arrived in Exeter at around 11am and spent a while there wondering about and had a bite to eat.
I then carried on west all the way down to the coles' hometown of Falmouth! I then went on to taunton where I spent the night at a roadside services.

Today I carried on up into Wales and visited penarth near Cardiff. Did a bit of filming and headed back home.

a total round trip of 640 ish miles. I'll be happy not to get in the car again for a while

wow thats amazing....

2006-05-18T10:19:00.000+01:00

yesterday i had to take a trip into town for work, my destination was tottenham court road.

Now tottenham court road station has some really cool new advertising. instead of the boring, old fashioned usual adverts you get on the walls as you go up the escalator they have fancy new LCD screens showing all manor of animated adverts.

Now they've had this for a number of months now and nobody seemed to really make good use of it - still pretty much the same conventional adverts as before just in digital format.
But yesterday's advertising delight was pretty cool.

It was an advert for the new sony bravia TV's - you know the advert with the coloured balls?!
Well some clever person decided to use every screen on the way down the escalators for one advert. the coloured bouncy balls started at the top and bounced all the way to the bottom going from screen to screen finishing with the "colour like no other" tag line and then a picture of the TV. Take a look (cheers hoylus)

it was pretty cool i was impressed! i'm not suggesting you take a trip there just to see it but keep an eye out on the tube for more stations to pop up with the fancy screens.

My hair

2006-05-17T10:51:00.000+01:00

Well here's the first of my shorter, more frequent blogs....

I have cut my long hair - its goodbye to the shaggy look and back to short neat and tidy hair.

I must admit I do miss the big hair, feels a little strange!

I will try to do better... Honest

2006-05-17T10:37:00.000+01:00

It has been brought to my attention by the 1 or 2 people who faithfully check my blog for updates that I have been really lacking in my upkeep of the blog. A big sorry to those people.

The reason I haven't said much is that I have found it difficult to write anything that I think would be worth reading!

well what I aim to now is blog a bit here and there - regardless if I think its good enough or not. I'm going to add a few things each week.

It's ok I am Alive

2006-04-22T09:08:00.000+01:00

Wow, a whole month and a bit without posting. That has to be one of the longest breakdowns in Blogging in this little fraternity of blogs.
The main reason i have not blogged is that I've been a busy boy working. I've been working on an event called Spring Harvest, for those of you that don't know what that is its the biggest Christian conference in Europe, split up into 7 6day weeks across two butlins sites. thousands of Christians go to it every year. We (elucid8) provide AV for two of the venues on the minehead site.
Another way of describing the event would be " a month stuck in butlins with thousands of Christians with most of the bars shut!"

So permit me if you will, while I sit here eating my Easter egg to tell you briefly about my time away.

week one,
I really quite enjoyed the start of spring harvest this year - we had quite a relaxed setup over a couple of days, Me, Matt, Phil and a couple of others ( a badger and a gangster) had the chance to go out for a couple of meals and spend a relaxing evening in the local pub.
then the event started...
the first week was good, the main two reason for this were that Jo was there for the week working on the youth team and I knew I was going home at the end of week one! - it was good fun hanging out with some friends too, Sandjea and the taylors.

Week two,
I really enjoyed this week, i was back home... Need I say any more?! The long weekend involved visiting family and knocking down Lloyds shed.

Week three,
this was another good week, not as enjoyable as the first week - but I think that was mainly due to the fact that I knew I wasn't going home at the end of the week.
again got to spend some time with some good friends, the Electralyte massive. Mr and Mrs White, the Grinnells and a few others.

Week four,
Now this was "interesting" technically we changed events for the fourth week. All things spring harvest quickly turned into all things Elim. I'm not going to comment much on this event as I wouldn't want to misstakenly offend any Elims out there who may see this blog. Lets just say that the Elim conference had a very different way of working to spring harvest and other Christian events such as ROOTS.
We (tom and I) had a fair amount of time on our hands during this week which felt very strange in that setting. Normally at these events you get up very early, leave your accommodation and don't get time to visit it again until the small hours of the following day when all you want to do is sleep.
this week still had the early starts, we had a prayer meeting at 7am every morning but we were finished each day between 4 and 5. Needless to say I got chance to see a few frames of the snooker world championship.
on one of the days we had a big game of cricket (we being all the sound/AV/lighting engineers) who all seemed to have the whole afternoon doing nothing. It felt a little weird, and perhaps a bit naughty to spend several hours playing cricket but I thought, if the head technical person is fine playing cricket, then I was too!
we had two very nice meals out paid for by spring harvest and BHsound thanking us for our work at the elim conference (it was kind of them to include the Elucid8 two).

the whole event finished a day earlier than expected so Tom and I spent a lot of time on our own in butlins watching it transform back from Christian conference venue to the Stag and Hen weekend which by now will be in full swing.
I arrived home last night at about 10:20, its nice to be home. Roll on ROOTS!

On my travels

2006-03-20T10:08:00.000Z

This last week I have done a bit of traveling about for work. I've visit south Wales, Edinburgh and Leeds.

a few funny things from my travels...

while walking to the terminal at gatwick from the easyjet parked halfway to Edinburgh (or so it seemed) I noticed a sign on a box:

"for F.O.D use only! If you have a F.O.D problem or a large F.O.D call S.I.T.A on 5447"
What the heck does that mean?! I asked myself, while holding up the queue of people trying to get to their luggage.

while getting onto the train at Leeds to travel home I shuffled my way up the aisle to find my seat, being pushed and elbowed in all kinds of places - everyone getting rather stressed trying to get a seat and all that.
Well I finally found my seat on a table of four, there was two people sitting opposite each other - I asked the Lady if she would mind me sitting next to her gesturing to her bag on the unoccupied seat. Now by the expression on her face you would had thought I'd asked her to kneel down on all fours so I could use her as a foot stool for my journey home! She got very cross, all huffy and puffy towards her fella. I smiled, thanked her for moving her bag and sat down.
It wasn't till a bit later on when another passenger came along and said to this couple that they were sitting in her reserved seats! These two that got all cross with me were sitting in someone else's seat to begin with! I couldn't help but smirk as they sat next to each other, freeing up the seat for its rightful occupant.

on the same journey home from Leeds, a lady sat at the table adjacent to mine. She pulled out a couple of books and got down to her reading sraight away.
I read the spine of the book she had resting on the table...
"hands-on healing for your pets"
I nearly laughed out loud! As Lloyd would say - that's a whole lot of crazy!

thank the lord for my ipod, is all i have to say

The Hair

2006-03-20T09:58:00.000Z

well, I've had a hair cut...

I decided to take stevo's advice and go to jacks of wimbledon.

It was ok - the nice lady cut away at the mass of hair and generally sorted it out!

Sadly I wasn't offered a drink or a head massage which the website promises.

Here a rubbish picture for those interested

And for those of you who wanted to know what I looked like with very long (but straight) hair...

Darths theme...

2006-03-09T13:38:00.000Z

I'm sure most of you have seen this before but i like it and wanted to share it with you...

An update...

2006-03-07T14:53:00.000Z

Ok so today I went along to get my hair cut - thought its about time I went for a trim...

Sadly its been such a long time since I've had my hair cut that the place I "usually" go to has closed down!

Oh well, I guess I'll have to find somewhere else to go.

Barbers?

2006-02-27T20:53:00.000Z

ok so over the last 6 months i've let me hair grow quite a bit.

It went from this:

This picture was taken by Emily on our holiday last summer.

To this:
Taken at my sisters' 18th birthday meal last week. (Thats not my sister though.... thats my mum)

Now loads of people have shared their comments on my long hair, some like it others don't!

So now its time for a vote - do i keep the long hair or get a hair cut?

It's the little things that make you smile

2006-02-26T17:13:00.000Z

This week I have found two little treats.

It was one of those occasions when you stick your hand in your pocket and you think that bit of paper is a receipt but turns out to be a fiver!
I was just putting a pair of jeans into the wash basket (which had been on the bedroom floor for a number of days)I went through the pockets and found a couple of pound coins in one pocket which I thought was great and then went on to pull out the "receipt" I found in another and low and behold £5! That'ss exciting!!!

last night i was really in the mood for a nice bit of chocolate - i couldn't be bothered to go to the shops to buy any so i just thought I'd do without and carried on watching the telly.
Ii while later i went to the kitchen for a drink and found a cream egg! Fantastic!

(its a good job that I'm easily pleased....)

Lazer Quest

2006-02-24T11:13:00.000Z

The other night we took a bunch of kids from youth club to woking to have a few games of lazer quest. It was cool, I haven't been to lazer quest for years. I got a bit too pumped for action and shot Lloyd in the back before we had even left the armourments room! He was not very pleased with me.

the night went fairly well, with only one fight (which Lloyd broke up) and a couple of trouble makers who wont be invited back.

all in all everyone had a good time.

oh yes and the results....

for game one I was 2nd! (game two is not that important - needless to say I didn't finish in the top ten)

I think next time we need to go paint balling! That'll sort the men from the boys!

How annoying...

2006-02-24T11:04:00.000Z

This week I paid off my credit card and asked for the account to be closed.

a few days later I got a letter through the post saying "sorry your leaving, your account will be closed when your current card expires - we will not issue a replacement"

Hold on a minute! I asked for the account to be closed NOW! I don't want an account open in my name for another year until they decide to close the account.
bunch of monkeys!

I phoned and told them this - the lady assured me she will close the account today.

money spinner

2006-01-28T15:05:00.000Z

well.... i guess if thats what your in to! i imagine he makes a lot of money doing this.

Confession

2006-01-24T18:51:00.000Z

So I have a Confession to make...

I haven't done any exercise since Christmas - I have not once got on my exercise bike.

To make it even worse, I got some mcvities Gold Bars for my lunches this week. 9 in a pack, they are all gone! I haven't eaten all of them - I offered them round the office today when I realised there was only three left.

its not good

Happy Birthday!

2006-01-19T11:28:00.000Z

Today is my Dad's 50th Birthday! Happy Birthday Dad! I've added a few pics of my dear old Dad, a tribute if you will...

Harry Potter?

Like father, like son?

Action Man!

I'm probably going to be in trouble when he sees this!

Family Guy

2006-01-17T14:49:00.000Z

Recently i've got into Family Guy - its funny, and a little rude and sometime just plain weird! Have a look at this clip you'll see what i mean, if you like it tell me and i'll swap it for another one!

The First, My Last, My Everything

2006-01-12T11:25:00.000Z

I don't know why but whenever I'm walking and listening to music I can't help but walk at the pace of the music - even cars going by can sometimes make me walk faster or slower (dependent on the music they play and the volume it is played at)

So Tuesday this week I was in Covent garden for work - I went to get a coffee and started to wonder down the road. It was at this point that Barry White's track "you're the first my last my everything" started to play on my ipod. It wasn't many paces before I felt myself strutting along in time to the music!

Tripod over one shoulder, camera bag over the other - I must have looked a bit special!

MY EYE!

2006-01-09T11:28:00.000Z

The other day I was reading the local free paper, flicking through the pages quite quickly reading random headlines and stuff as I went.

at one point I flicked the page over, not realising that this was actually the centre page which was folded over - the flicking action caused the page to jump up away from the rest and the folded corner connected with my eyeball!
My actual eyeball, not my eye lid or my upper cheek the real deal! It was one of those pains where you think you've done something really bad - thankfully there was no marks or anything.

So I wiped the tears and continued reading (but this time with a lot more care)

from now on I will be wearing safety goggles to read the paper

Strange Dream

2006-01-08T10:27:00.000Z

Last night I had a strange dream, I often have what I like to call "montage dreams" these are dreams that rapidly change the subject after a few minutes like flicking through the channels on the telly.

Well last night one of these dreams and one segment was a little strange...

Jo and I were going to a traditional Salvation Army event at Southwark Salvation Army. We walked into the building (which is quite a small Church building in Elephant and Castle) and it was the size of Wembley conference centre 3000+ seats! So that's a little weird! But there's more...

We made our way to our seats, there was the usual hustle and bustle of a load of people finding seats, a brass band was warming up on the stage etc.

The opening of the event started, I nearly fell off my chair!
Lloyd Kinsley and Phil Hoyle walked up one of the sets of stairs up into the audience/congregation. They were both in full uniform (which I don't think anyone has seen them in for a number of years) carrying a guitar each!

So they got themselves sorted out with music and everything - I caught Lloyds eye and smirked a bit which made him smile. The spotlight fell on them and they started to play, Phil on his acoustic bass guitar and Lloyd with a large 12 string acoustic guitar - I didn't recognize what they were playing but it was a jolly little tune in the "joy strings" style.

They gave each other a little look and a smile and both took in a deep breath and...

Jo woke me up by putting the light on!

So who knows what they were going to sing!

If anyone has an interpretation of what this all means then please elaborate.

Altoids Door Handles

2006-01-06T15:59:00.000Z

Today I decided that it was about time I tried to fix the door handle to our office. Over recent months the door handles on both sides have started coming away from their fixings, this could be very bad if they broke completely as we would potentially be stuck in the office with no way of escape!

So after dismantling the door handle I found that the plastic inside the handle which holds it all together had completely broken up and wasn't doing its job.
I then set about trying to find something in the office that could be used to replace said plastic inserts.

So after a little while trying to find a bit of wood or something similar (and you can never find any wood in an office other than the desks) I found an old tin of altoids - the altoids had gone all weird in the tin so I threw them out and set about cutting and bending the lid into a suitable shape.

Good news it worked! I fitted the tin pieces and screwed the whole lot back together (with a little bit of gaffa tape of course!)

Both handles are (for the time being...) back on securely!

( thanks to Lloyd for the altoids - thanks to Phil for taking the photo)

Happy New Year!!

2006-01-02T12:08:00.000Z

Hello,

Happy New Year to you all! i hope that this year brings you all the things you hope for!

Narnia Nostalgia

2005-12-19T12:49:00.000Z

I'm sorry to the two or three of you who check my blog now and again for the lack of posts recently - I'll try and get a few in more regularly!

Saturday night Jo and I went to see the new Narnia movie LW&W (doesn't work as well as LOTR..)

A fantastic film - I was impressed with the CGI and the general story telling, I also thought the young actors did a fairly good job, nowhere near as wooden as the Harry potter lot!

During the whole film I found myself thinking back to my younger days, my absolute favorite video when I was growing up was the 1979 animated version by Bill Melendez. The English addition had contributions from Sheila Hancock (Witch), Leslie Phillips (Mr Tumnas), Arthur Lowe (Mr Beaver). I played this video at least once a week knew it word for word (and as it turns out I can still remember loads of it!

last year I bought Jo the 1988 BBC dramatisation of the story which was good to see again although I can remember that when I originally saw the BBC version on a Sunday evening before going to the army I was always comparing it to the animated version (which I still think was better than the BBC version)

Well this year I have bought myself (and I suppose Jo) the DVD of the animated version! Can't wait to see it!

For all those who would like to see the animated version it is being shown on ITV1 on boxing day (10am) I recommend watching it! Will probably be very cheesy but I'll be watching it

iSit, iPod, iBlog

2005-12-05T22:47:00.001Z

Just thought I would let you know what I am doing this evening...

We just put up the first stage of the Christmas tree (I don't have the patience to make it look right all in one sitting)
Had to repair the tree lights - weirdly my second session of repairing fairy lights today.

now Jo is having a bath and I am sitting quietly in the living room enjoying "the courtyard theme" from "shawshank redemption" off the "universal music presents" CD which of course I am listening to off my new ipod

(warning techy talk...) I'm also enjoying my new speaker placement - bought 20 meters of new speaker cable and got my speakers in a half decent position to get a good coverage of the three sofa's in the living room. first chance i've had to properly listen to the new setup.

The 4ft tall penguin is looking at me and the cat is purring on the sofa next to me

What a perfectly chilled end to an evening

Birthday Weekend

2005-12-05T10:12:00.000Z

This weekend has been a weekend full of celebrating
Jo turned 26 on Friday and I turned 25 on Sunday so we spent all weekend doing birthday type things and generally treating ourselves!

lets give you a run down of the weekend - which started on Thursday night...

After TIZ we went to Lloyd and Becky's place - they got us a joint present, a chocolate Fondue set!
We cracked it open straight away and enjoyed the chocolate goodness.
It was a cool way to begin our weekend of celebrating.

On Friday we both had the day off so spent the morning doing absolutely nothing! I gave Jo her presents which included an Ipod Nano - she was very happy with that!
We then went to our local 'big' town Woking, we looked roud the shops and had KFC for lunch.
That evening we met up with family members and a friend (Mr T McNizzle) and all went ice skating! what fun we had - some family people were not as enthusiastic as others but we had fun all the same.

Saturday was cool too - Jo was supposed to do some work for my boss Matt, she went up to the office but forgot to take my keys! so without being able to get hold of another set to let herself in she turned back home (feeling a little silly for not taking the keys)
That evening we met up with my dad and went for a curry

then I got my present! little bit early but I couldn't wait - the new 5G ipod. Fantastic!

Sunday (my actual Bday) we spent in London looking round the shops (bumped into the Hoyles which was nice) and then went to see Stomp in the afternoon - good, creative and loud but I don't think I'd go again.

we finished off the day/weekend with a romantic meal at pizza express just off the strand. Once we got home we were pooped - I stuck on my new lee Evans DVD and watched most of that.

We had a great weekend - thanks to all those who were part of it.

Apple Apple Apple

2005-11-30T16:52:00.000Z

This week I am making an effort to eat more fruit and stuff-- so on Monday I bought a bag of apples! Lovely...

I just ate the last one - which has meant I've eaten at least two a day! I'm feeling healthy and its done my constitution no end of good.
I also had a Banana yesterday so I'm definitely getting my 5 fruit and veg a day!

I've also eaten one and a half kit kats today oh and a double Decker! (probably shouldn't have mentioned that...)

any hoo, I better get some more fruit for tomorrow!

Would you like Fries with that?

2005-11-21T13:12:00.000Z

Yesterday Jo and I decided to go out for lunch. I wont name the eating establishment we went to so lets just say it serves a lot of chicken and rhymes with Bando's

The main reason we chose to eat there was because Jo had one of these loyalty card things which meant we had a whole chicken for free - so it was a cheap way of eating out, just pay for the chips and drinks....

I went to the till to order....

So I asked if I could use the voucher and claim our free bird - which seemed to be fine.
I then added some chips and rice to the order.

Would you like a drink? - yes, a coke and a mango juice

ok that's £17 please, to which I replied, no its not (pointing to the loyalty thingy)
Oh oh yes sorry (bashing keys on the till) £6.50 please.

She then asks What drink did you want? A coke and a mango juice!
(hands me a glass and a bottle of mango juice) - Do you want a glass for the juice? Yes please i reply.
She then tries to hand me a wine glass which she promptly drops onto the counter, it rolls towards me and i catch it as it drops off of my side of the counter!

So after that i paid the bill - as she handed me my card and receipt she says "have you been to *****'s before?"
(it was at this point i could feel a Basil Fawlty style outburst rising up inside me...)

BEEN HERE BEFORE...?!
Of course I've been here before, my wife and i had to eat about 15 meals to get to the point where you would give us a free chicken - or did i miss the part where you started handing out free meals to new customers!!
(Was the reply in my head)

i just smiled and said "yes", and took my receipt, card and glasses (not forgetting the bottle of mango juice) and went to my table.

The food was fantastic!

cheers,

Long Distance Clara

2005-11-18T09:58:00.000Z

Hello one and all - sorry its been a while since I last blogged.

A couple of weeks ago I had an event to do (for those who don't know, I'm a production engineer so spend a lot of my working life doing events)

On this particular event I had to drive the van, it was a fairly long journey 300 mile round trip. Couldn't help feeling a bit like Long distance Clara, sitting high up in a van! Good fun (and the event went quite well too)

Anyone else want to admit to liking Pigeon Street?

Round The Twist

2005-11-01T15:11:00.000Z

I don't know if you do this but I am always doing something along these lines....

I am always in a bit of a daze in the mornings, never quite sure what I'm doing - I'm surprised that I make it to work some days!

when I get in the shower I often get things mixed up - not thinking, I often put shampoo on my body and shower gel in my hair! And I never realise till its too late and stand there feeling a little silly.

the other morning I took it to a new level...

after my shower I went to brush my teeth, I grabbed my tooth brush and instead of going for the tooth paste I squirted some of the hand wash soap in the general direction of the bristles! Luckily I realised before it was too late. It could have been horrible!

this may go some way to explaining why I don't use hair products - there would be potential for disaster every morning!

Where have all my Jumpers gone...?

2005-11-01T15:09:00.000Z

I can only find one jumper to wear - all (and i mean all) of my other ones have gone missing, i dont know where they are!

if anyone has them, or knows the where abouts of them, please let me know.

Thank you

Snap happy

2005-10-20T14:34:00.000+01:00

Just sitting here at work and I have downloaded the new google dektop thingy. Its quite good - it shows you news headlines, lists of your emails in both outlook and web based accounts like gmail. But my favorite bit is the photo viewer.

this little box on the screen scrolls through you pictures all day long - it great to see some of the old photos that I haven't looked at for years.
brings back loads of good memories of the stuff I have been involved in such as holidays and the like.
one tip though is to be careful what folders you tell it to search through for photos - save red faces if any slightly dodgy shots appear....

Try it - you might like it....

New Look, New Feel, New Skin

2005-10-18T09:56:00.000+01:00

Please allow me to draw attention to the fact that my blog has been revamped by LARD (otherwise known as Lloyd), he is a really good friend who has a lot of time for people even when he's tired from working all the hours God sends!
(he even has time to spruce up blogs...)

So a big thank you to LARD for..... Well, everything!

Turning into my dad

2005-10-07T18:17:00.000+01:00

Talking of turning into my dad.... Last night I went to TIZ (been saying I would go for ages...) spent some time there playing games with the kids, they absolutely whooped me I didn't have a clue what was happening and couldn't really see what the little guy I was controlling was doing...

then they showed me the latest thing that some of them are in to - Backyard Wrestling! Its basically reinacting wresting fights they've seen on the telly (hulk Hogan style...)
all together this is much more real as in they actually are hurting each other by smashing light tubes over their heads etc.

All I was thinking was - where are the parents! And how are they getting away with it on school property!

Just the sort of thing my dad would say! And I never thought I would be like that.

oh well I guess it was inevitable

Baby on Board

2005-10-07T15:09:00.000+01:00

No! Before you all get excited, Jo is not having a baby....

driving to work yesterday i got stuck behind a flashy VW golf - all the extra, alloys, tinted windows, chrome finish all over the lights etc.
But what I could just about make out in the rear tinted window was one of those yellow "baby on board" signs.
This made me chuckle - at some point in the recent past, this young man had become a dad and all of a sudden been handed a whole heap of responsibly. (he could have chose not to take on such responsibility but being as the sign was there to warn any potential road-rage filled driver that a small innocent child was in the car, suggests that some of the responsibility has been embraced)
I imagine that this has meant a fair bit of growing up too - letting go a bit of the youthful ways and all that to be a dad.
its funny then to see this boy racer car whizzing down the a3 with a small indication of the change a-foot, from boy to man - from somebody's son to somebody's dad.
I wonder how long he keeps the car!

I guess that's a sign of the first stages of turning into your dad. I'm very much on my way there now - I have the grey hair for starters.

I should point out that I was paying full attention to the road while driving and in no way did I day dream my way to the office and arrive realising I had no idea what went on in the previous 10mins of driving! Anyone else have times like that?!

Simon the Spook

2005-09-30T12:27:00.000+01:00

Last night I got home late from work - just in time to watch spooks.

As soon as spooks finished I went to bed for a well earned early night.

during the night I had a vivid dream which involved some friends of mine.

So picture the scene - I am one of mi5's top agents, I have recently infiltrated a drugs smuggling gang under the alias of "Richard" a high flying businessman making his riches from supporting the drugs industry into England.

one evening after a hard days work at HQ, Jo and I went out for a meal with some friends (Lloyd, Becky, Steve and Jo) as we arrived at the local harvester I spotted across the car park one of the top drug smugglers in the gang I had recently been associated with. So quick as a flash I got the guys in a bit of a huddle and told them that if that guy came anywhere near us they needed to refer to me as Richard or in the very least not act surprised if this guy called me Richard.

so as we entered the restaurant the gang member bumped into us - we both (the gang member and I) pretended we hadn't spotted each other and greeted each other.
At which point Steve who was obviously not dealing with the situation all that well blurted out a greeting saying "hello I'm one of Si's... I mean ricky's friends"
the gang member look suspiciously at Steve and then at me and back at Steve again. Lloyd gave Steve a glare and the three girls just held their breath! The gang member made a sharp exit...

I then woke up so I have no idea what happened to my undercover standing in the gang, I guess I will have to see if the dream continues tonight!

weird dream I know - and strange that Lloyd had a dream that involved me and Steve too....

"I'll have a fillet of Photoshop and a shoulder of After Effects please!"

2005-09-27T17:45:00.000+01:00

Today I started work on a project for a client which involves creating a couple of adverts for upcoming events.

the adverts are in addition to some great publicity that has already been produced by Barry and Tim (designers at Elucid8).
so what I have done is to base the adverts on the existing publicity and hopefully create something that's nice to look at.

So after butchering the artwork from Tim and Barry I can then fiddle with the elements and add video clips and music etc a generally make things fly about the place and look cool.

but while working on this project (and all my projects) I do however spend most of my time thinking that the work I am producing has the potential to look good, it has the potential to communicate the message that the client is after and has the small potential of amazing the client (although I hardly ever get to that level) but the sad truth is that it also has the very real potential to be absolutely Poo Poo! Even though I'm often starting with some really nice looking artwork (thankyou design team) I can quite easily make it look like a mad mans dribble!

I very much hope (and pray) that this project will turn out alright, otherwise its P45 time!

Ticket to Ride

2005-09-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

As most of you will be aware, Jo and I recently moved out of the city to leafy New Haw (near Woking). There have been load of benefits for us living out here, getting to know the locals - enjoying the fresh air (next to the M25) and the quieter nights (next door to an Indian restaurant).

One drawback that we had to wrestle with when deciding to move was that my daily commute to work will significantly increase. When we lived in Mitcham my round trip from home to work and back was all of 2 miles whereas now is more like 35 miles!

So after a few months of settling into our new home and getting used to the commute I can now say that the commute isn't a drawback at all!

now that it takes 40 or so minutes to get into work I have the time to wake up properly and prepare myself for the working day - whereas before I would rush into work, still wet from the shower not having a clue what I was doing or what I had to look forward to during the day. I now can listen to some music think through the stuff I have to do and generally get my head straight!

the time I spend in the car each day also gives me space to think and allow my mind to wonder and ponder all the stuff that I'm involved in. I've also got back into spending time with God - praying and worshipping in the traffic, this may sound a weird thing to do but its really not I don't close my eyes or anything!

The car also runs better now too - before it was only being used for a mile journey often in the cold and in traffic, many times the car wouldn't start because the battery wasn't getting charged. Now its running quite well (considering it is a bit of a rust bucket) it always starts first time.

so all in all I am quite enjoying the extra commute. Although its made my day longer and is costing an arm and a leg, the commute is doing me good!

cue the 100 best driving tracks - open up the windows, crank the tunes and feel the wind rushing through your hair!

2005-09-07T17:19:00.000+01:00

SGH Mission Impossible