Pain.....lots of pain!

Apologies for the absence of last week's post, I was still moving in and tired and it sorta slipped my mind. My bad. I know this week's is late but I've been busy today and after the weekend I've had I'm absolutely knackered!

So this weekend was the weekend of Lads on Tournament....and what a weekend it was! I am practically dead after playing all weekend. First time I've done anything physically active since coming home for the summer and it has pretty much killed me. I've got all of the muscle aches under the sun. I've been looking forward to this weekend for a while now and for good reason. It was a fantastic warm up for the upcoming season and I'm sooooo glad I played. It showed me just how out of practice I've become over the summer and how badly I've let my fitness slip.

Originally I was just meant to be playing for Lincoln....however one of the open teams run by our Captain Jack 'Sparrow' had a bunch of last minute drop outs and so me, Will, Ian and Lex were picked up to play for them. I was also informed I was to be captain for Lincoln this weekend as Sparrow wasn't playing for us and Tomo wasn't present for the weekend. This instantly made me nervous as I'm a terrible leader, especially when playing with team-mates who have been playing for alot longer than me. I mean how can I call the play when the people I'm playing with know what I'm doing better than I do? So I was really only captain when sitting having the team talk with the other team...which would be fine but I generally have no idea what I'm talking about...I felt like I was just rambling for the most part but hey ho. I'm not sure what the other players thought about my performance as captain, hopefully I wasn't too bad.

I was also nervous about playing for two teams after so long of not doing anything, especially since the team I was playing pick up for was set up by Jack and one of his school friends. Now Jack used to play for a team called Stags, these kids came from a juniors school that teaches ultimate and are arguably one of the best teams I've seen. Jack and Andy (His mate) left the school and the team but decided to make their own team, named Stage 2. So I'm not sure how to feel about being asked to pick up...part of me was nervous as hell, scared that I'd fuck up and bring the team down and the other part of me was a little flattered that I got asked to play. I mean maybe I was just being asked to make up the numbers, or maybe they thought I was good enough to warrant the chance to play for them. I guess I'll never know but still I was scared I'd be a let down. I also didn't want to dedicate myself to playing for them as I was captain for Lincoln so I couldn't go balls out for Stage, they weren't my priority....the strange thing being....I think I actually played better for Stage than I did for Lincoln....

My performance as a player is far more important to me. I don't think I played my best frisbee by any means but it wasn't my worst...which I was expecting to after 3months of not handling a disc. The Saturday was very hit and miss. Had its ups and downs. Mostly downs if I'm honest. We had some awesome moments but also some horrible ones too, which I guess is mostly down to the rustiness of summer and re-adjusting to a new team line-up. There's always some time needed to adjust to a new line-up, learning how each person moves and behaves on pitch. After that I think things picked up and we started to feel alot more familiar with the players we were working with (Lincoln consisted of Me, Will, Cat, Chris, Matt, Alana and Jon. Stage 2 consisted of Me, Will, Andy, Jack, Alana, Ian and Lex). Towards the end of the day the lack of summer activity's effect on my fitness became quite apparent and I started to flag quite quickly. I mean hell, after my first match of the day I felt awful! I guess I was expecting myself to be able to explode out of the gates and hold the same pace all match long but that really....really didn't happen. After that though I seemed to be able to find my pace and the exertions didn't seem to be so bad.

I woke up into Sunday bleary eyed and full of muscle aches already from the day before. I can say that Sunday went a helluvalot better than Saturday. I think on Saturday I managed to score a couple points against BFG, a team who pride themselves on having an average height of 6ft something, which is probably my highlight of the day. Sunday was full of much better times, we won distinctly more games than the day before and we all seemed to be working better as a team (both Stage and Lincoln). The muscle aches were a little more pronounced after a nights sleep on them and playing again hurt for a bit until everything loosened back up and eased back into the familiar movements. That being said I'm in absolute agony right now....but still! We all seemed to be playing a damned sight better and hopefully my performance wasn't too disappointing throughout the day. The Lincoln/Danger game will stick in my head though for possibly one of the most intense games I've ever played! The scoreline was something like 6-3 to Danger by the end and holy hellfire was it a great game! We didn't have Chris for the match as he is one of the Danger lads but even still we gave them a helluva fight. Our defence really gave them something to work around and even though they ran us hard we scored a couple decent points against them (which is an achievement in itself) and stopped them from getting into double figures (which is another achievement). That in itself shows me that I must have improved at least a little bit from when I started, I mean yeah it wasn't all my effort and my teammates are far better than me so they deserve most of the credit, but surely I must have improved a bit to manage to help pull that off.

It got to the end of Sunday's play when I was literally a walking corpse. There was nothing left in the tank and only one game left to play for Stage 2 and I could relax I gave it what I had left. It was the spoon final against Smart Casuals (shortened to Smasuals- pronounced "Schmazles" in my head) and those guys and girls are some speedy little bastards. I mean hells bells did they work us hard. For our last game of the day they were amazingly energetic. They're always a fun team to play against and always a good laugh and a good match. If I'm honest, I've never been so happy to hear the final buzzer in a game before. I was almost asleep on my feet by the time that match ended. We had to iron man the match because Lex and Ian disappeared outside after their match with Lads on Tour just before Stage 2 went on and didn't come back in to sub for us. So we were dying upwards by the end of the match, after playing all weekend for two teams and the last 19min match without a sub we were practically dead. Me and Alana got outside not knowing who had actually won that match. As it turns out we did! Which surprised us both, I'm pretty sure we were behind in that match but I honestly couldn't tell you.

All in all this weekend was pretty awesome, knackering but awesome. A great way to kick of the new season and to get back into the swing of things. I just hope that the teams I played with were happy to have me and were pleased by my performance. I felt that on times I let them down and that I hadn't played my best but we all have our off moments right? Ah well, here's to the third and final year, let's hope it's a good one!

Catch ya later folks

Kick Ass!

So as always not much has happened this week. I worked and that's been it really.

Today though I went to see Kick Ass 2 with Lucy, Connor and Toby. It was a great movie, but it annoys me when they keep calling themselves superheroes. They are just vigilantes...none of them have special powers or anything, they are merely dudes with bats or other weapons. Other than that the film is great! It's funny and violent much like the first, but more over the top. To try and apply any sort of serious tone to the movie is a wasted effort. You really can't..the movie is stupid and crazy but it's entertaining and fun so who cares? I love how insane Hit Girl is as a character. She's mental. I mean it's to be expected given everything she's been through...her dad being some kind of serial killer vigilante who exposed her to that kind of thing regularly is going to leave some kind of permanent mental damage to her. Still I think she's probably the best character in the movie. Kick Ass is just shit, all he ever seems to do is get the crap kicked out of him. The biggest disappointment has to be the lack of Nic Cage. They could have incorporated a bunch of flashbacks with him being his crazy self and that would have been great.

I will say this though, the film has one very weird and messed up sub plot and it should probably be removed. Union J have no place in that movie.

Lets face it, we all love Nic Cage, he's great.

I'd like to write more about it but I can't think of anything to say really....I go back to Lincoln on Sunday which should be awesome. Can't wait to see the frisbee family again...kinda nervous about being team captain for Lads on Tournament but hopefully I'll be fine.

Catch ya later folks

Aaaaaaaaand it's Monday

Looks like it's that time of the week again. So it's Monday once more and I've got very little to say about the last week. I've been working hard and barely sleeping which has been....interesting. I'm looking forward to getting back to Lincoln where I can take it easier for a couple weeks before lectures start up again.

I have recently watched all of the first season of Avatar: Legend of Korra which prompted me to re-watch The Legend of Aang. I'd forgotten how much I loved that show. It's a shame kids today don't have any cartoons like it. It's hilarious and conveys some more serious points along the way as well. I must admit that it makes me wish I could control the elements to shoot fire from my hands or create tornadoes  with a sneeze but sadly that's not the case.

It makes me sad to see that there aren't any Saturday or Sunday morning cartoons anymore. I used to really look forward to watching Yu-Gi-Oh/Pokemon/Beyblades/Digimon/Avatar/Ninja Turtles and a whole load of other shows at the weekends. You'd wake up and run downstairs, park yourself in front of the TV for a couple of hours watching all the awesome cartoons. Yeah they were cartoons and people say they're childish but when I watch them, I don't care! I grew up watching them! I'd go so far as to say that they taught me some important life lessons. The differences between right and wrong, good and evil and not to trust anyone named Gary Oak.

Yeah they were shows designed for kids and maybe they are childish and immature but some of them had some deep and profound messages to give. Hell I can think of two obvious ones simply from Pokemon: The First Movie. Mewtwo and Meowth both have moments where they question life and why we do the things we do. It's a "kids" film for crying out loud! Most people still write them off as childish non-sense, so what the movie has a couple insightful moments, doesn't make it any more mature. The main character then proceeds to sacrifice himself. He throws himself between two of the most powerful beings to ever exist just to try to stop them fighting. What kind of kids film does that? And then they go on to create a whole load more movies and the TV series is still going! There were so many tear jerking moments in the first season of the series alone! And that's just one show!

Pokemon alone taught me a lot and that's not to mention the others. I could probably go on and on but then I'd sound like a right ass. I don't care if watching cartoons is seen as childish and immature, it makes me happy. They remind me of simpler times, when things weren't all so serious or important. They managed to teach a generation about life while making us laugh and joke along the way. Which when you come to think of it, isn't that what our parents have been teaching us all these years anyway? To work hard but also to have fun along the way?

Catch ya later folks

Monday, Monday, Monday (ahhhaaahhhaaaa)

Imagine the title being sung to the chorus of "Ruby Ruby Ruby" by Kaiser Chiefs.

So it's once again Monday. That day that follows the weekend before. You either come into Monday bleary eyed and hazy from the weekend before or totally refreshed and ready to face the week (but let's face it no-one does that). I am very much the former but not for the reasons one might expect (Yeah, "one" used the word "one"), I'm all bleary eyed and hazy due to a shitty sleep pattern caused by all of the night shifts I pulled last week. Every day I worked last week was a night shift. It sucked to say the least. Who needs sleep anyways? The graveyard shift is an odd one...it shifts from busy as hell to quiet as a grave in a moment and it's really disconcerting.

Aside from that I haven't got much to say really. I spent most of last week working night times and failing to sleep the rest of the time so there's not all that much to say. I went for a run for the first time in far too long (2 months or so...) and it hurt...alot. I am massively out of shape and my fitness has dropped like a stone. The all be it short run took longer than it should have done and my legs are still killing me from it. It was a bad call. Safe to say I'm going to need to do alot of work to be ready for Lads on Tournament in September.

My niece Kelly King has been short listed for a "Little Hero" award. She's been exposed to my sister's epileptic seizures a number of times and has called for an ambulance, given their address and let them in to help my sister when she's had a seizure. She is a little hero and has really earned this. I'm gunna post the link here and if you've got facebook and could vote for her that would mean the world to her and my sister! Thanks folks, here's the link:

https://apps.facebook.com/offerpop/Contest.psp?c=429366&u=3822&a=177914495580579&p=306933629360508&v=Entry&id=1889975&rest=1

Catch ya later folks

Reconnecting

I haven't had any crazy shenanigans going on this week, it's been relatively quiet really. My new laptop arrived and I've discovered that Windows 8 is a tricky bastard to learn, but no doubt I'll get it with time.

That's not what this week's post is about though. This week is, as the title suggests, about reconnecting with old friends.

I saw one of my oldest and best mates the other day while I was working and realised I hadn't seen him in literally 2 years...that scared the hell out of me. I mean I place a lot of faith in my friends, they are and always will be incredibly important to me. I'd kill for some of them and I'd die for a few, because they are like family to me. They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps and I like to think I keep great company (even if they don't agree).

Fray was, and still is, one of my best friends. Yeah I haven't seen him in forever but I'd be there if he ever needed me to help him and I'd like to think he would for me too. This chance encounter though got me to thinking at how crumby a friend I've been this summer. I've hardly seen anyone! It sucks! I've been so busy working that I've had hardly any time to do anything else really and that really sucks. So for that I do apologise, to all my friends (not just those that read this) and I promise to do better.

It also got me thinking about an old friend of mine who I met way back when I was 13/14, hell I don't even remember. We'd sit and talk for hours on end about anything and everything, pointless or not and even though she lived hundreds of miles away (in another country), she was still one of my best friends. I sadly lost touch with her a couple years back for reasons I don't remember....maybe my laziness or I became busy and every time I thought about getting back in touch I thought "Nah it's been too long...". Well I recently got back in touch with her a couple days ago and even though its been a couple years and we've grown up and done things with our lives it seems like nothing has changed. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing...personally though? I think it's probably a good thing. The past couple years hasn't really changed who we are all that much which to me is a good thing, maybe the years have just added to the people we are instead of a complete overhaul.

Really this week has just got me thinking about how important my friends are to me and how....ashamed I am of myself for allowing myself to become so distant from some of my best friends. I still trust them with my life and if they called I'd answer. Maybe now I'm not the first person they'd call, or if they'd even call me at all...but my point is, if they did I'd be there, but if they didn't? Who would blame them? I haven't been the best friend in the world recently and yeah we've all been busy with life, doing things and stuff and it makes it hard to keep in touch at times...but surely I should be able to make time to write a simple text, email or Facebook message or something just to say "Hey, how you doing?". 

So I admit maybe I've neglected you folks and I'm truly sorry about that, but just because I haven't been in touch recently it doesn't mean I've forgotten about you. I've probably just been busy, not that that's much of an excuse...it's just the truth. I'll be better in future, promise. 

After all, I am who I am today because of the friends I've made and the times we've had together, good and bad. I've been there to help a few, if not most, of you out in bad times and we've had some real good laughs along the way. You guys (and girls) have made me the man I am today and without you I wouldn't be half that man. I know I can be annoying and a pain in the ass at times, I would apologise but I know I'll only do it again so really there's not much point. Just know that I don't do it on purpose, it's just who I am!

So yeah, that's pretty much all I've got to say on the matter really. 

Forgive this post for being so late in posting, I've been busy today trying to make up my absence this summer to some mates and I've been pulling all the late shifts at work for the past couple days and only get in at 11pm. So yeah, I'm currently sat on my bed, proof reading this post that I drafted last night on my way home/whilst sat in bed. I don't know. It's been a bit of a crazy week and not for all the good reasons really.

I've been having some weird ass dreams recently that probably aren't help by the lack of sleep and the sleep that I am getting being restless and very light. All in all I'm back to sleeping poorly again which isn't exactly fun but it can't really be helped, what with the humidity and the late hours I'm at work. It's weird to think that maybe my sleeping pattern will normalise when I'm back at Uni...normally its the other way around. The ear infection that still hasn't completely healed doesn't really help matters. It's not often that it aches, but it's always one of those dull aches that's too prominent to completely ignore and too dull to actually hurt properly you know?

I'm guessing the scare I had recently when I found some swelling in a place that shouldn't really swell hasn't helped either. I got myself booked in with the doctor as soon as I could so he could check it out and thankfully it's nothing to worry about. He gave me some antibiotics that should clear things up in a few days. Still, it scared the hell out of me. Even though I kept telling myself "It's probably nothing..." I couldn't help but fear the worst. Can you blame me? Anyways, I'm okay (or should be soon) so that's a relief. Maybe the weight hasn't completely lifted from my mind yet but something like that takes time to recover from and considering I haven't finished my antibiotics yet and the swelling hasn't fully gone away then I doubt my mind is ready to let the matter rest yet. You'd have thought it would have been embarrassing or at least kind of awkward going to the doctor and having him examine such a....sensitive area, but I didn't feel any of that. He's a trained professional and didn't make me feel like an idiot for being scared about it for no reason. He said that it's important to get something like that checked as soon as possible.

Anyways, that is pretty much it for now. I'm gunna go and lay in bed and try to relax and switch off, get some sleep before having to work late again tomorrow. I haven't had chance to work on any of the photos yet, for which I do apologise and I promise to get them done as soon as I can!

Catch ya later folks

Monday already huh?

I would love to put up some more photos from the show two weeks ago but I've been busy as hell recently and haven't had chance to play with them as I'd like. Sorry about that.

This week's been pretty freaking busy, It's been pretty much all go all the time. I've just had to spend £470 ordering a new laptop because my one is goosed. That wasn't a fun experience but it needed doing so I did it. I would only have spent the money on food and useful things anyways.

Not got alot else to say really, but hopefully I'll be able to get some of the photos edited and some more diss research done but we'll just have to see what the week holds I guess.

Catch ya later folks

It's er...It's been a while....

So....yeah.....it's been about a month. I'd apologise but I've been a busy man. I'll start from where I left off? Yeah let's do that!

Wimbledon! A lot of....unpredictable events went down this year at Wimbledon. Nadal going out in the first round, Sharapova getting knocked out alongside Federer not too soon afterwards. Saw Laura Robson make it further than any British woman since Sam Smith's day. It was a pretty interesting tournament....but that was soon to become a pretty incredible one for Andy Murray. He did it! He went all the way to top and took Novak Djokovic in straight sets! Murray played an incredible match! Possibly the best I've seen him play in a very long time. Djokovic was playing well but not as good as he could have done and that's all Murray needed to take him apart. I must admit the final point was....disappointing. It was a winning point but it was due to an unforced error and wasn't exactly the most impressive point to watch. No epic duel between the two playing various different shots against each other, dragging onto a marathon of a rally. It was a simple serve and failed return, but sometimes that's all it takes. Don't get me wrong though, there were some amazing rallies in the rest of the match! A fantastic display of skill and athleticism of the sport! I'm glad he's done it. His second grand slam title this season, first the US Open and now Wimbledon! Hopefully this is the start of many more to come!

Day one at the site.

With that said I've spent the past couple weeks down at the War and Peace Revival at the Folkestone Racecourse in Kent. Well.....past couple weeks isn't entirely accurate. I had to come home at one point for a few days to see the doctor due to an inner ear infection that was really fucking with my sense of balance. He gave me some tablets that helped and so I went on back down to join the festivities! I rejoined the show on the first night of the actual show. It was amazing to see the transformation of the site in just a few short days. When I left there was hardly anyone on the fields, when I came back there were tents and people everywhere! 

The site on one of the show days.

Being the first show at the new venue didn't seem to have too large an impact on things. The crowds seemed to be enjoying things and the weather being so great might have helped with that. It was incredibly warm for the entire show making working it hard but at least it provided beautiful conditions that seemed to help draw the crowds. Some would say it was too warm (myself included) and lower temperatures might have pulled in more public but from what I heard there were massive queues of people trying to get in pretty much every day of the show. It took some getting used to with the new layout of camps and displays but after so many years spent at The Hop Farm with everything being laid out the same for so long then adjusting to the new site was bound to take sometime. There were some great moments and some less great moments but everything has it's ups and downs. 

Sunset on day one.

As always I ended up playing camp photographer but that meant I got to play with my camera so I'm okay with that! From what I've heard so far I've done a pretty good job, but personally I think I could have done better. Holly was saying I need to get myself a uniform so that I can run around in the battles with everyone and get some really great photos of things. I couldn't agree more, however I can't really afford it at the moment so maybe next year! Hopefully when I'm done sorting the photos out they look okay. I've been trying to merge some HDR images of some beautiful sunsets that I took but they don't seem to be working too well. Going to take some tweaking I guess but hey ho. Anyone who has me on facebook that reads this will be able to see the photos I took eventually when I get around to uploading them. They won't all go up at once but they'll get there eventually. The only reason I haven't put them up yet is simply because I've been busy with other things and they aren't ready to go up yet.

Another great sunset.

I was meant to be going up to Lincoln last weekend to play in a Frisbee tournament but sadly due to my inner ear infection I wasn't able to play. All the running and bouncing about would have played havoc with my head due to the lack of a sense of balance. I hated having to drop out! Haven't played since May and haven't seen some of the people that were there for even longer! I've been dying to get back out on pitch and chuck a disc about but no-one around here seems particularly interested and due to the ear infection I haven't been able to go running or swimming so I've been sat on my ass doing sod all. It's killing me! September can't come soon enough! I'm looking forward to being reunited with my Frisbee Family and the coursemates again. 

I've recently been having trouble with my laptop, the power connector jack was pretty badly mangled and so making it impossible to connect a charger without making scary electrical noises crackling noises. So I decided to replace the part...it seemed like a good idea at the time considering how much it was going to cost to get it repaired in a shop. I ordered the part and began the task of taking her apart. It took a while and I swore and shouted a little bit in the process but I managed it eventually (with a little help from a YouTube guide). I fit the replacement part and then the fun part started...putting her back together again. A wise man once wrote that "Constructing something complicated is a work of art, but any monkey with a big stick can take it apart" or words to that effect...it's been awhile since I read the book that line is in, but in this exercise I found it incredibly accurate! Why the hell does this thing need so many screws? Seriously!? Better yet, why the hell didn't I write down where everything went!? Yeah, I've got two screws leftover and a couple days ago one of the screws I didn't think I'd put back properly fell out the bottom scaring the hell out of me (but proving me right so there's a silver lining in that one). So with my baby back together again and able to connect a charger I thought my troubles were over but alas! She won't charge. My battery works fine and charges fine in Mum's laptop. My charger fits but the power output can't be recognised by my laptop which makes no sense as it used to be before I mangled the jack and replaced it with the new one. Truth be told I don't know what the hell to do now. I don't want taking her apart and putting her back together again to have been a wasted effort....I'm taking her down to PC world tomorrow to see what they can do for me and hopefully they'll manage to figure it out for not too high a cost, if not I guess I'll just have to run her from the mains and save up to replace her. She's done well for a laptop, 3 years old, nearing 4! So by laptop standards she's practically ancient!

I've got another job that really needs doing before I go back. Dissertation research, which by all accounts it a real bitch. I'm kind of looking forward to it though, it's not every day I get to carry out my own research project completely designed and carried out by me. That and hopefully I can turn up something really interesting in the research that I can use to make something really awesome! We'll have to wait and see til I get started! It's my new priority task, photo editing and other stuff can wait til I'm either less busy or need to unwind.

I realise this post isn't out on Monday as usual but I thought I'd better get it out as soon as possible before my fans (if I can call my readers that) begin to lose faith. I'll be back to the weekly Monday schedule this Monday, yeah the post will be out a couple days after  this one and not all that much will be in it but it's principle right?

So yeah that's pretty much it for now, I could write more and probably should since it's been so long but I feel like I'm beginning to ramble (when aren't I, right?) so should probably stop. I'd say any questions/feedback anyone wants to give me would be great but since no-one ever really says much, whats the point?

Catch ya later folks