The last two weekends have been different from what would have been considered the norm for the last month or so. Firstly we had the Colchester event with the O&S which was my last event as a player. After all the planning that had gone into the event and the concerns as to how well everything would work, I would have to say that the event was a success. The concert sounded fantastic and there was even an orchestral piece to keep us non-singers happy. Walking on stage while playing the solo in Bolero was probably one of the most challenging things I've ever done as a player, but nailing it in the concert (after a few false starts in rehearsal) certainly felt like an achievement. Now that I've officially left as a player there's plenty to be getting on with in terms of the management stuff but that can be discussed in a later post.
As you probably noticed last weekend was fireworks night, and in keeping with a tradition there was a firework party hosted by Zippie and Debbie for the support team from Greenbelt. Having gone through the previous weekend (see above) which was very hard work and then everything that's been going on in the office it was really good just to hang out and chill with some friends. Plus I got to do some different things like make wooden stakes and chop wood for the fire and most importantly light some fireworks :D It's really good to be able to hang out with groups of friends for no other reason than to hang out.
With all this *relaxing* done there's a few Christmas concerts coming up and now that my front room is really beginning to look good I ought to pull the stops out and get it all completed. Ah well, life goes on...
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
New House (stuff)
Not quite a new house, but does kinda have that feel to it. After some stirling work by Dad during the week, it was time to get some new colours on the wall, almost. There was still a little bit of prep work to do, which is why there is now an inch gap (or more) between the carpet and the wall, but as I was going to get a new carpet it's not a real problem.
But after putting some base coat on the skirting and the window sills, the two massive tins of paint got opened and on went the new colours. I was a bit nervous about the choice of colours, not entirely sure how well they'd work together, and in the room, but I think it's beginning to look really smart. The bottom colour is going to need a bit more touching up, and I still need to find a border to put round the middle. Once that's done there'll just be the small matter of getting a new carpet and furnishing the room. Making a separate dining area and living room should stop the room feeling so massive and it'll be nice to have some people over again possibly for Christmas drinks. (oooo mulled wine)
The new fridge/freezer got delivered easily enough, so that'll need to be stocked (though there is some beer in the at the moment, get the bases covered). So after a year and a bit, a bit more of the house is feeling like my own :)
But after putting some base coat on the skirting and the window sills, the two massive tins of paint got opened and on went the new colours. I was a bit nervous about the choice of colours, not entirely sure how well they'd work together, and in the room, but I think it's beginning to look really smart. The bottom colour is going to need a bit more touching up, and I still need to find a border to put round the middle. Once that's done there'll just be the small matter of getting a new carpet and furnishing the room. Making a separate dining area and living room should stop the room feeling so massive and it'll be nice to have some people over again possibly for Christmas drinks. (oooo mulled wine)
The new fridge/freezer got delivered easily enough, so that'll need to be stocked (though there is some beer in the at the moment, get the bases covered). So after a year and a bit, a bit more of the house is feeling like my own :)
Sunday, October 15, 2006
House Changes
So having spent longer than expected getting to this stage I'm happy to announce all the wallpaper is down in my front room, the pelmets and bows with the *lovely* pink colouring are down (and may be ceremonially burnt). Holes have been filled, and rubbed down a couple of times, and white paint has gone up on the big wall and all the way around the coving.
My Dad is being brilliant, having patched a load of the plaster work and helped with the filler work, he's coming down tomorrow on one of this days off to do more work getting the walls preped and painted up. That just leaves sorting out the skirting boards, painting the walls the right colours and putting the border up. Then getting some furniture and sorting out how it looks. Suddenly that list seems a lot longer than the one of things that have been done but I'm feeling good about the room and what I want to do with it. Of course once it's done it'll be excuse to have friends round again for an evening/weekend.
On the slight downside from the weekend, the fridge/freezer that was left with the house is finally giving up the ghost. Well the freezer door no longer closes reliably (as I found this morning when it was open with defrosted food inside). So it's off for a quick trip to Currys tomorrow lunchtime to see if a replacement can be sourced, delivered and the old one removed. Not the best thing that could have happened, but with two lots of on call money coming through in the next pay packet that should have it covered.
I'm almost convinced everything is going to come good so what this space for piccies once everything is as I want it.
My Dad is being brilliant, having patched a load of the plaster work and helped with the filler work, he's coming down tomorrow on one of this days off to do more work getting the walls preped and painted up. That just leaves sorting out the skirting boards, painting the walls the right colours and putting the border up. Then getting some furniture and sorting out how it looks. Suddenly that list seems a lot longer than the one of things that have been done but I'm feeling good about the room and what I want to do with it. Of course once it's done it'll be excuse to have friends round again for an evening/weekend.
On the slight downside from the weekend, the fridge/freezer that was left with the house is finally giving up the ghost. Well the freezer door no longer closes reliably (as I found this morning when it was open with defrosted food inside). So it's off for a quick trip to Currys tomorrow lunchtime to see if a replacement can be sourced, delivered and the old one removed. Not the best thing that could have happened, but with two lots of on call money coming through in the next pay packet that should have it covered.
I'm almost convinced everything is going to come good so what this space for piccies once everything is as I want it.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
I'm not dead!!
Blimey it's been a while since I last posted so let's do a quick run down of what's been happening. We finally hit all the deadlines with work and so the pressure has kinda eased, though the occasional weekend day and extra hours are still present.
I managed to get away at the end of August for a bit, the O&S summer school was really good fun and a chance to get away from all the office stuff and concentrate on other things (mostly music). After that a load of us went on to Greenbelt for stewarding. This was only my second festival and my first on the support team. It was quite hard work, especially finishing after 3 most nights, but the work was interesting and varied, and made a huge difference from when I did venues a couple of years before. Plus I got a nickname, 'Guilty', which does have a backstory which people can ask me about if at all interested. Also it couldn't have been that bad as I'm all signed up for next year ;)
A while back I succumbed and bought a Nintendo DS, which is a very shiny piece of kit if you look at the main specs. There's a project out there to porting linux to run on it. Having got this working I thought I might carry on with my glut of C programming and port the latest Gaim release to it, as someone has made a very nice text front end onto it. This is all a bit geeky I know, and really it's a more see if you can rather than having really anything useful but I think it's quite cool.
Also I've started decorating other parts of my house, the office has had a couple of additions go on the wall, and I have all the parts necessary to put the book shelves up (though I might get some help in). The front room is the major project, firstly taking the wallpaper down and crying at some of the things I'm finding, and then sorting out the rest of that and painting and making it more my own. Hopefully the bulk will be done by Christmas, and Dad has said that he'll give a hand when I need it. *cough* painting *cough*
Finally, having joined the Southampton Concert Wind Band a few weeks ago, I finally plucked up the courage and went to my first concert. There were still a few pieces that I hadn't played fully but this didn't really matter (sight reading is a wonderful thing) and we survived nearly 3 hours of playing just out of the wind and rain in Port Solent.
I managed to get away at the end of August for a bit, the O&S summer school was really good fun and a chance to get away from all the office stuff and concentrate on other things (mostly music). After that a load of us went on to Greenbelt for stewarding. This was only my second festival and my first on the support team. It was quite hard work, especially finishing after 3 most nights, but the work was interesting and varied, and made a huge difference from when I did venues a couple of years before. Plus I got a nickname, 'Guilty', which does have a backstory which people can ask me about if at all interested. Also it couldn't have been that bad as I'm all signed up for next year ;)
A while back I succumbed and bought a Nintendo DS, which is a very shiny piece of kit if you look at the main specs. There's a project out there to porting linux to run on it. Having got this working I thought I might carry on with my glut of C programming and port the latest Gaim release to it, as someone has made a very nice text front end onto it. This is all a bit geeky I know, and really it's a more see if you can rather than having really anything useful but I think it's quite cool.
Also I've started decorating other parts of my house, the office has had a couple of additions go on the wall, and I have all the parts necessary to put the book shelves up (though I might get some help in). The front room is the major project, firstly taking the wallpaper down and crying at some of the things I'm finding, and then sorting out the rest of that and painting and making it more my own. Hopefully the bulk will be done by Christmas, and Dad has said that he'll give a hand when I need it. *cough* painting *cough*
Finally, having joined the Southampton Concert Wind Band a few weeks ago, I finally plucked up the courage and went to my first concert. There were still a few pieces that I hadn't played fully but this didn't really matter (sight reading is a wonderful thing) and we survived nearly 3 hours of playing just out of the wind and rain in Port Solent.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Large Update 2
Not that this should become a normal occurrence but given the month lapse between posts let's catch up with what's been happening.
O&S made the trek up to Blackpool again to take part in the Breakout weekend that was being put on in the Winter Gardens. The fortnight before had been the rehearsal weekend which was a bit more southernly in Birmingham. Both weekends were a lot of hard work but really good fun, with some great music to play and a chance to catch up with friends again.
The drive back was hard but I did manage to get back to watch the second half, and then extra time, and then the penalties of the world cup final between France and Italy. Having Italy in the concert band sweepstake certainly made it more interesting to watch, especially once Italy had to take penalties with their record. However Italy managed to hold on and win not only the world cup but £48 for me.
On the subject of winning (please note the seamless links between these sections) Simon hosted a poker night last week for a group of us from work. Having only played poker on the computer meant I was unsure how well I'd hold up against real people, however I managed to come out the table winner (even if a lot of it came down to having a scoring hand on nearly every hand). Originally the winnings were going to be for drinks after Friday's Ultimate match but the heat and time put pay to that. Oh well it'll just have to wait for another time.
The Ultimate club is going well and I'm just surviving the current heat wave even if it just about kills me by the time I've run myself silly on both defense and offense. The exhibition match Friday lunch time went well (even if I had to wear dark at lunchtime in the sun) so hopefully we'll have a few new members coming down of a Wednesday.
We also ran the Sports Relief mile at work the previous week. I was fairly uncertain as to how well I'd manage it given how inactive I'd been in previous months but with a target of 10mins I headed off in the middle of the pack of 'runners'. In the end I (fairly) comfortably managed around 8mins which was fairly impressive. So my new exercise fad is to try and go running once or twice a week at work. The routes are fairly scenic and there's plenty of shade for when the temperature rockets as it has at the moment.
Finally (on the hottest day of the year so far) I headed into London in order to meet with a solicitor to help start the process of setting up the charitable company for the O&S. Certainly was an interesting meeting with a good outcome which should see things moving along.
O&S made the trek up to Blackpool again to take part in the Breakout weekend that was being put on in the Winter Gardens. The fortnight before had been the rehearsal weekend which was a bit more southernly in Birmingham. Both weekends were a lot of hard work but really good fun, with some great music to play and a chance to catch up with friends again.
The drive back was hard but I did manage to get back to watch the second half, and then extra time, and then the penalties of the world cup final between France and Italy. Having Italy in the concert band sweepstake certainly made it more interesting to watch, especially once Italy had to take penalties with their record. However Italy managed to hold on and win not only the world cup but £48 for me.
On the subject of winning (please note the seamless links between these sections) Simon hosted a poker night last week for a group of us from work. Having only played poker on the computer meant I was unsure how well I'd hold up against real people, however I managed to come out the table winner (even if a lot of it came down to having a scoring hand on nearly every hand). Originally the winnings were going to be for drinks after Friday's Ultimate match but the heat and time put pay to that. Oh well it'll just have to wait for another time.
The Ultimate club is going well and I'm just surviving the current heat wave even if it just about kills me by the time I've run myself silly on both defense and offense. The exhibition match Friday lunch time went well (even if I had to wear dark at lunchtime in the sun) so hopefully we'll have a few new members coming down of a Wednesday.
We also ran the Sports Relief mile at work the previous week. I was fairly uncertain as to how well I'd manage it given how inactive I'd been in previous months but with a target of 10mins I headed off in the middle of the pack of 'runners'. In the end I (fairly) comfortably managed around 8mins which was fairly impressive. So my new exercise fad is to try and go running once or twice a week at work. The routes are fairly scenic and there's plenty of shade for when the temperature rockets as it has at the moment.
Finally (on the hottest day of the year so far) I headed into London in order to meet with a solicitor to help start the process of setting up the charitable company for the O&S. Certainly was an interesting meeting with a good outcome which should see things moving along.
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