brb lol!

OK this is going to be my last post for the next week or so, as I'm actually leaving these fair shores for a few days next week.

My grandfather gets his teeth done in Poland - for financial reasons (apparently it's loads cheaper), & last time he took my baby brother with him, so this time it's my turn. I know it's been a good 2 years or so since my last dentist appointment & I know there's going to be a lot of work needed to be done (2 very fail root canals plus half a dozen fillings...at a conservative guess).

I'll be in for some pain, but that's easily handled & I know my fiancee will appreciate the effort!

The last time, there were some complications with air travel which led to a major issue getting people back to the UK. It's the first time I've been on a plane for 18 months, so hopefully air travel has fully recovered from the knockback this caused.

We continue.....

Running till the wheels fall off

OK so I've been toying with the idea of trying to get into a better shape (yes, yes I know round is a shape...shhhh) for this here wedding coming up in a couple of summers time (and if you didn't already know that I got engaged...seriously dude?). I'm not the most self-conscious of people & for a very long time I've been of the opinion that, size is not important - I've been borderline-anorexic in my youth & for many years got out of the habitual eating practices. This has lead me to be more sporadic with my eating practices & me out of routing. This has then not only impacted my opinion of food & eating, but masked my love...for cooking!

However, I have, firstly with the help of my Aunt & Uncle/Godparents, & more recently, with the influence of a certain King family, been eating better & more regularly. With this has also also come into focus the fact that since finishing my degree, all my jobs have again been office-based. This means I'm spending a lot more time sat down on my backside playing with computers & not really getting out there amongst the world.


So it got me thinking - I need to get back on my bike- & not just the proverbial one, my actual, physical bicycle! So far I've tried to ride into work as many times as I can during the week, but have yet to actually do more than one day on the trot! What I really need to do would be to hit the gym & get me a personal trainer...however costs mean that it's not really that feasible - I am trying to save for a wedding.

So I struck upon an idea...employ a Cranston!

I had a rather frank chat with young TC to see if he might be able to lend me a little of his time, to try to get into shape for the wedding - my thought here is a friend who (probably!) won't take the mick out of me (the whole time!) & at the same time would not be afraid to kick my ass in to gear (read: encourage/empower) to keep going, even when my body needs a sit down. Also what was brilliant was getting me to stretch out afterwards & also he gave me to exercises to build on what we are attempting - so sit-ups & press-ups (both of which are totally alien to me) to attempt to begin the toning process.

I know that historically I definitely can run (Cokethorpe Cross Country winner in 1997 & shaving a minute off the record time) & it may be a little buried, but I know I have a determination in the idea - not for anyone else, but for myself - getting trim/into shape/fit, or whatever is something I feel I can achieve & it's no bad thing.

I've acquired some gear - all the essentials (shorts & shoes!) as running in Merrells/Vans is not so good for your feet! The first time was absolutely killer - we did about 3 miles & I was really hurting for a whole week. However, the second time was much better & I think once I start to get into this, I can effectively run on my own, without needing the encouragement that TC brings. I've cycled in a few times & started to get some reps going, but it's going to be a long road....no pun intended (well maybe a little one!)

...we continue

Random work-i-ness related stuff

So once again seem to be slacking, but this time it's my geekery taking over again! I've been epically html coding (with a little help from Dreamweaver) to try to revamp the internal website that my crew uses. Once again I've been tasked/self-tasked with kicking the old website into the new era of VLE's & 10 times the number of product.

To do this, I have slimmed it down, cut away/prune all the crud which was never used & streamline all the data.So rather than having 5 pages for one series of products, just make one! Rather than having a page for every single product done by the company, create links to the online FAQ's.

What I have effectively done is to create a portal with links to other websites, patches etc. but written in such a way as to be as customer-focused as possible, but written for the support crew to use as a platform to find out info. So where somethings already been created, html links work better than simply duplicating pages/data.

I've also been slowly talking to imbalance of a company who officially support OSX but in reality nobody really has a clue...apart from a certain person who's been using OSX since he left the company over 4 years ago(!). I've done a compatibility matrix which is essentially just a drop-down product list which will tell you instantly what is & is not OSX compatible. Hard work, but definitely very useful.


The other tasks I've done have been to do a VLE upload document (which I found out today I need to change...thanks oh nameless provider!) demonstrating the most effective method for 3 big providers. It's a bit of a thankless task, but useful in the long run.

I know that I work best with project work, & much as I moan (especially when I 'break' the intranet!) I love projects really!

..........we continue

For youthworkers - possibly useful

Life without 'essential' tech?!

A very random contemplation (I think aided by the epic fail of a support site recently) what would life be like without Facebook usage? There are not over 300 million (300'000'000) users (apparently) with most people conducting their lives on social networking sites we expect - the phrase "it's not true if it's not on Facebook" has become more & more prevalent & to some extent true.

In fact when I got engaged to Maddie - we conducted a little social experiment - let's just change our 'relationship status' to engaged & see what happens. The results were both scary & hilarious - it took less that 5 minutes for the first phone call! All this with a very slight change in 2 profiles.

But it did get me thinking - what would happen if there was an epic national power outage? Or if the Internet (which was not initially envisioned for, or designed to do) simply stopped working?

The amount of business, communications, news, media, searches etc. that are done on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis is epic...& growing daily! If that stopped it would be catastrophic fail worldwide.

The concept of the failing of those services is now almost too terrible to comprehend - it would almost be termed as science-fiction - a world without the internet! The same I would postulate would be true if there were no mobile phones - can anyone really remember a time before mobiles?

People born in the 90's almost certainly can't - when I was at school (a considerable time ago!) it was first pagers (ferociously expensive to use & now only used in hospitals & restaurants) then mobile phones properly kicked off when I was just finishing school in the mid-to-late-90's. I got my first when I was 18 & now struggle if I forget to bing my phone for any reason. The techology we now almost take for granted has come on leaps and bounds - you can call, sms, mms, email, take digital picture, web browse, listen to mp3's, and do a host of things with apps. There are multiple connection methods & they even take standard headphones, rather than original (i.e. terrible) sets supplied. the number of phones is always rising - there are always new models with new features - driving the technology forward & creating an easily disposable tool - all from an original concept by Marty Cooper.

I have no answers, just more questions - it's a 'what if' scenario - picture if you will, a world free from technology...


...We continue

Recent Slackness 2

OK a little more on the recent lack of Brianshare from the post from last week - with why I;m using my paper (huh? Oh wait I remember that!) journal, I'm basically writing down ideas as me & Maddie think about them, or other friends are giving helpful things to contemplate.

So although I'm not blogging - I'm being a super-keeno & have written down loads of ideas, mostly at a conceptual stage of the thinking process, with an overall aim of getting an overview idea for planning & more importantly getting a budget down.

So it's not only getting me brain on paper (as per last week's post)it's trying to get my brain going & stimulated to process things like what. who, when & where, then the little details like how much & who's gonna take care of what!

I know that the youthworker in me likes to organise things (sometimes) & plan (occasionally) but what I'm doing is getting effectively a proposal, so I've looked at things like:

• who I'd like to have as ushers & best man, 
• a provisional guest list, 
• what sorts of things could form a wedding list
• what sort of music would be good in & around the service
• what (provisional) budget/costs would be good
• honeymoon ideas
• stag 'do' ideas
• where to get married & live
• what to wears
• reception ideas

But I'm not trying to necessarily organise everything now - 2 years in advance - I know things change, but I thought it helpful to get some details down, so that we have a rough idea of how many people we're looking at inviting - do we want a reception & it so where & who might we invite. Also with numbers of ushers/bridesmaids, all this will help get a general feel as to what the rough costs might well be.

I know that I work best with a budget - so when planning for how to fill a youth centre with tech & having an almost open book that was hard to deal with, but when someone says here is X for this specific purpose, I then can begin to gauge what can be done to budget. So when someone says I want to get a new TV & my budget is £500, I can then come up with a couple of options to get the biggest/best for the money. Not because I'm a cheap-ass, but it's just that I need to have a rough idea of parameters to work within.

Right enough rambling for a mundane monday!

We continue....

Splinter Cell: Conviction Review

OK, I've managed to play through this over the past couple of weeks & have been introducing  some friends to it as well.

It's a tough & punishing game - if you run & gun you will not survive...literally! It's like playing on Veteran Mode (Call of duty Series) even on standard difficulty settings. So if you bash down a door & run into a room blasting at everything in sight - the enemy AI will get them hiding & ducking for cover, then proceed to light you up with heavy automatic weapons!

However, the key element is stealth.

I first started playing it with Sparks in co-op mode - a seriously challenging 4 levels which take in everything from infiltration, evasion & straight up rooms full of guards that you have to dispatch quickly & silently. It was a real team match & a proper challenge. In fact it was a welcome break from the intensity of CoD6:MW2!

There are some differences in the controls & there's a good cover system (a la Gears of War) which is very natural feeling. The weapons don't initially look very good, but they each have 3 potential upgrades which add things like extended mags, higher calibre or range bullets & in some cases scopes. There are also some cool gadgets - there's the standard frag & flash grenades, but also a sticky camera (which I've not really used that much yet) a very useful EMP grenade for knocking out the lights. However my personal favourite is the remote mine - it's like the C4 from CoD, but with much more range & immensely satisfying to use - it always make me chuckle!

The stealth elements are similar to another Ubisoft title - Assassin's Creed 2  - so you can climb on multiple surfaces (not all though a la AC2) like pillars pipes & rails, then rain down some 'Death from Above', or if you can sneak up to someone (crouched & from behind naturally) you can take them out swiftly & silently & it's immensely satisfying to do. You can also grab people who are foolish enough to peep out of windows near to where you are hanging from the ledge. If & when you do manage to do something special (not just shooting people in the face) the reward is a one-touch assassination - you hit the Y button & then your character will pop out of cover & do an impressive single shot kill.There are also some interrogations, which seem to have been influenced by Jack Bauer - gritty is all I'd say!

The main story seems to also be influenced by both 24 & CoD6: MW2, which is not detrimental at all. In fact there is a little bit of the Jason Bourne series as well. There's lots of variances on a theme (infiltration, extraction, etc.) but it's a very satisfying game to play & I would class it more in keeping with AC2, rather than the blammo action of CoD.

Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that Ubisoft are doing something unusual in the gaming world - giving you free 'stuff', just for playing the game well - there are achievements of course, but what the publishers have done is to release some DLC with free guns & equipment - every week there's something new to try. It doesn't feel lazy - quite the opposite - it feels like they're giving something extra - to try to keep you playing the game longer & that's definitely no bad thing.

Overall 4/5 only because the controls aren't completely intuitive but a solid 4, for sure!