Lord of Leisure

As you may have guessed from the hugely mysterious blog title, I am tired, have been working non-stop for three days and it is getting to me, just waiting and waiting for the great Event Next week, of which I have to pack the weekend and by the looks of things there is no way I can actually put the tent up to see what it like till I get to Glastonbury, oh the joy to spend most of Wednesday fighting with a tent.

And as for those elusive tickets, they have been posted out today so, Jamie should have them the weekend which is great news.

I have some writing and preperation to do for next week, as I am recording my first proper Radio show on Tuesday for the radio course. I am slightly nervous, must admit because well I thought the sampler that was recorded last week was crap but Mike is saying that there is great potential on the show.

Got some more paperwork to do for it, and also yes yes, i know I keep saying it, the podcast will be out, I assure you all, it’s not really worth the wait but well it keeps me busy!

PlasticBlog version 2 has been released by Glyn, so added to the list of things to do, is to test that on the server to see what new fangled gubbons I can play with. Glyn, hope all is well with you mate, and hope to hear from you soon as well.

Well campers for now, once again another brief update is drawn to a close. Actually, do people prefer the small updates as opposed to the really long ones I do pull out every so often? If so let me know and I will keep to this.

Actually this covers Saturday too, I was busy busy with Mum and Dad, once again, but this was sorting out the house ready for Aunty Bett to come back more than anything. The house needed a good clean after a the time away down in London, see the parents when visiting, are the most messy!! I have proof!

Never mind, anyway, The main nub of the matter is that through all the chores I have done this weekend, I still haven’t got the tent out to see if it is any good yet, and there is only just over a week until Glastonbury rolls around. Dear me, methinks my skates need to be put on, but then again I have never been good with skates, in fact if you were going to do things quicker why do you need skates in the first place?

I ask you, surely if you were cooking a gourmet roast dinner for 6, that would be a bad situation to introduce such footware?

The front room has been rearranged for hopefully a better working environment, you see as I type this, it is 22:54 on the little tiny windows clock, on Sunday Evening, Mum and Dad have gone to bed before heading back to their corner of the world tomorrow (well Mum is heading off to Scotland for some reason for work) and I have a great Later with…. DVD playing in the background simply becuase the music that is showcased on Jools Holland’s show is quite fantastic.

Actually come to think of it, that is the last great Music show on TV baring that stuff on the music stations. Top of the Pops of course died a death because the BBC decided it couldn’t compete with the music channels. Still quite interesting that the music stations cannot better what Jools does. In fact, why is it on so late, I know that’s the idea of the title, but some of the music deserves the limelight at 10pm. Come on BBC, sort it out!!

Sorry, went off on one again! Yes Spring Cleaning happened, albeit very late, and the place looks better. We even have a new Toilet seat, oh the joys of living in Oswestry!! But Have been looking into relocating the gym, to Oswestry considering that most of my free time at present will come at the weekend and I don’t want to drive all the way to Telford all the time.

Because work finishes at all sorts of times, it is harder to do after work as you really feel knackered then. Speaking of which, this last few days, I had felt so tired, It was getting to the point that I was starting to fall asleep at the wheel of my car, which is always a bad sign. I had to have a long rest Friday night, simply no choice.

My copy of the Simply Red concert recorded at the Royal Albert Hall turned up this week too. It’s a Live CD which is recorded at the same time of the concert then 10 minutes later, if you are there, you can pick it up and take the whole thing home with you to listen again and again. Seeing as I couldn’t go, I figured why the hell not?

After all, when I did the same thing for the Nottingham Arena gig back in Nov 2005, it was one of the best purchases I had ever made. Mick H really does sound better live, than pre-recorded. The new songs were good, catchy and the Simplified stuff had faded back to the way they used to sound. Which is not all bad, but somehow some of the Simplified songs were better. It depends.

Also Aunty Bett, once again is making progress, she may be moving to the Medical Ward at Gobowen, where the full treatment begin to get her to walk again. Her leg is getting better, and she is losing all the liquid that built up as a result of the operation. Fantastic as they say.

Though the nurse last night, had stuck a pair of underpants on her head after she had said she wasn’t wearing one of those wooly hats that old people wear when they are nuts! (the ward she would be moving to used to be the Mental Ward! That’s why she said!)

Saw Natalie the weekend, and just relaxed, it was nice to just take a breather and reflect on things which had happened over the week. We were both tired, guess having that much fun takes a toll at some point eh kids? Still, she is a lovely woman, whose company i enjoy far too much. Maybe that’s a sign?

I was glad to see that my mate Glyn was taking time out and taking stock. Granted he did that while watching Pirates of the C 3, the confusing one, but hey each to their own right kids? Kelly by the looks of things has been enjoying MySpace too much, with various people commenting on her comments saying all sorts of strange and silly things. Welcome to the Internet.

We had our full exams results on Friday evening thanks to Wolverhampton Uni’s system being brought online. Well overall it is good, I don’t have to retake any of the subject areas. Multimedia, I did better on the exam than the assignment, so that ended on A15 (one off the top mark), Project Management was confirmed as a B13, which is great, but the subject which caused no end of concern, it turns out i only just got a pass mark (D6), which is one mark away from a fail.

The worst thing is, two other chaps, Steve and Paul Bremer (Ex RAF lad on our course), they only got one grade above that, which means that we all did terrible on it. Mr Paul Bremer, indicated to me how annoyed he was (i am not saying how annoyed btw) and wanted to appeal seeing as everyone did poorly. But I had to say, we passed the thing, let’s leave it.

They could remark it and fail us, so take what you can get and move on. Shame as he is going onto doing a full degree, and this does bring down the marks. Congrats again btw, for the XP MCP.

Right a few messages I wanted to leave on the internet for the relevant people to see.

Dave and Chris, hello fellas, tis been a fair while now, Dave, how was your birthday?
Steve and Kristi, hope you had fun the weekend relaxing after all the exams.
Matt, well, just be yourself. I command you.
Chez, hope things are going well,
and to The legend that is Mr. Paul Thompson, you still haven’t contacted me yet! Come on, you can’t be having that much fun contracting already?

And before I sign off, despite there being far more to type up, can anyone tell where the damned DVD remote control has gone, have been looking all over the place for it, and I have no idea where it last was! Bye Campers, and will speak to you all soon!

Well as I said ealier this week I would actually post what I am doing as far as that fangled radio malarky goes, so here it is:

For the past few weeks every tuesday and wednesday I have been going to Aston Villa Footbal ground (Villa Park for non-footbal fans, of which there are increasing numbers from people I talk to) to learn the mystical art of Radio Production. The course is run by a firm, Mike Owen Media, you can search for it on the internet, and the course is called Radio Aspire, which is a european backed course to get more people into that field. It is a recognised qualifaction by many bodies, and judging from the last group of people who went on it, they all passed with flying colours and a lot of them, went onto working with various organisations, such as the BBC in Birmingham and BRMB, one of the local stations owned by a great big firm, whose name escapes me.

During the course, you look at different types of media comparing with radio, coming up with pre-production plans, scripts and ideas for a radio show, the different elements involved with such a thing like editing, SFX, cueing material to be played, and “Driving the desk” which means you play with lots of nobs widgets and doo-hickeys.

The reasons why I am doing this, is One, to basically give me something more creative to do than just Windows Server Management and the degree. Two, it’s been a fancy of mine to see how I would do in a real radio production. Since My chat with Matt last year, where we were talking about what we would like to do if we had the chance, I said I would like to go into radio, and he would like to cook. He went on a cooking course, and in a way it inspired me to get off my backside and actually do something about it, instead of just sitting back and saying, what if. It would be a wonderful thing if somehow, the crap I was creating was good enough to appear on a station in the UK or elsewhere, but I know that the more likely outcome is, that I carry on doing what I do now, and just going up the ladder that way. Afterall, I do actually have two training courses coming up soon, Network Services for Windows 2003 and Citrix Presentation Server Management. It appears that people at work have the faith in me and are investing in me, which I am more than happy about. But there would always be the nagging “What if” if i didn’t try this. Besides, in this crazy world of ours, who knows what will happen?

I could become a star!!! (Isn’t that a scary thought?)

Hello campers, as promised another post showing some of the sites I have seen from London, accompanied by my lovely lady friend Natalie. Here’s a rundown of what we did:

Saturday:

Got there about 12 from Shrewsbury, wandered by Hyde Park met Natalie’s Cousin, went to covent garden, and the Squares. Got drunk with Nat’s friends where we were staying.

Sunday:
Feeling iffy, went out and about again to various places, Posh stores on Oxford street, and went out in the evening to watch some funny people at the Comedy Store

Monday:
More wandering, some shopping, Visted The Tate Modern, The Globe Theatre and saw Monty Python’s Spamalot.

Tuesday:
Tiny bit of shopping before heading Home. (well first birmingham then home for me!)

There we are a very heavily condensed version of events with the crap cut out. Jolly good! Below you will find lots of pics with funny captions!!

Business capital of London, Canary Wharf. Looks like an opening scene for one of those 80’s Wall Street Films.

Trafalgar Sqaure. And that’s Nelson’s Column. Makes me feel strange…

I had to take a photo of this. Does anyone else think of the word “Midget?”

Covent Garden, one of the places to go to see alsorts of people performing for £3 all day. Those crazy people!

Here is the gorgeous Natalie by a ship. And yes, i thought of all the jokes, and I am not saying them!

Here’s the circus. No clowns though…

The Evil Natazuki returns!!

And I had to have a picture of this. The picture says it all.

You may have noticed the site went down for two hours. The entire website was being moved to another web cluster with my web host, so hopefully you will find this site responds slightly faster. Just been having a massive evening working late, seeing off Mr Paul Thompson (Maggot) at Pizza Hut after he finished today to start another life having fun. All I can ever say is I wish you all the best mate! And I saw a very disturbing picture on Richie’s phone, you see, someone who I asked to work with, Rob, named one of his um, testicules (forget the name right now, but that in itself should disturb) and while they were working away they went out in a nightclub and rob had texted the nightclub’s screens to show “Shout if you had seen (whatever it’s name was)” Everyone started screaming, and for the rest of the night, he had it on display for all to see, even walking down the street at night, no-one stopped him!

Had also seen Aunty Bett this evening, and she has been moved into her own room becuase her leg is still leaking. There is slight cause for concern at present, and she is on stronger antibiotics. She is also down becuase she was on her own. Such a heartbreak really, it’s not fair.

Also just trying to finish off packing for tommorow, and i have just finished ironing, I am awful at it, never mind eh? Well campers, I hope you all have a great weekend doing whatever you have planned, I hope it is grand. And I know the recent Blog posts have been ever so brief but such is life, that a lot has been happening this week, one really needs the time to take it all in. I suppose it’s one of the reasons why it is so interesting in so many ways and yet disturbing. A real mixed bag. Sorry was getting all philosophical, and that’s no way to be writing on a friday night. Take it easy campers, and more crap will be coming your way soon.