Persistent

Jon's Camera

Came up to visit us.
Look, I took a photo of it to prove it.

It brought some scrumpy which I am currently finding to be very pleasant with ice, and it helped me to eat lots of things.
All in all a very nice camera and more than welcome.

Dream reading required please

There I was standing in the flat back of a pick up truck with Kieran sitting in the cab. The pick up floated over the Grand Canyon. It was very high and I knew we needed to get down but there was a balloon tied to each corner of the car and we were getting higher. I climbed into the cab through the drivers window and found something to throw at a balloon. It popped. We fell very very fast. Keiran didn't seem worried Three balloons isn't enough.....was my last thought.

There I was standing in the flat back of a pick up truck with Kieran sitting in the cab. The pick up floated over the Grand Canyon. It was very high and I knew we needed to get down but there was a balloon tied to each corner of the car and we were getting higher. I climbed into the cab through the drivers window and found some gaf tape stuck on the seat, I pulled a balloon to the window, put the tape on, put a nail through it and waited for the gas to realease. We started to float down, then more gas came out.
We went faster. Kieran was watching out the window To much lost gas I thought, it was my last thought.

There I was standing in the flat back of a pick up truck with Kieran sitting in the cab. The pick up floated over the Grand Canyon. It was very high and I knew we needed to get down but there was a balloon tied to each corner of the car and we were getting higher. I climbed into the cab through the drivers window and found some gaf tape stuck on the seat, I pulled a balloon to the window, tore the tape in half put half the tape on, put a nail through it and waited for the gas to realease. We started to float down, I covered the hole with the rest of the tape we floated to the ground and drove off.
"Can we buy some Yu-Gi-Oh cards?" said Kieran.

Today I rely on

GOOGLE.

Today is the first day of spring and I only know that becasue the Google graphic tells me so.

I think that google should be able to track me whichever PC I am on so that at any time my first internet page can remind me of impending birthdays, anniversaries, where I am supposed to be, where my wife is going on what date and why.

It could remind of dental appointments and dog trimming appointments.
I could add my to-do list to it and it could tell me when I need things done by and possibly threaten me about nasty consequences if I am late doing them.

I have already signed up and do at times use the google calander but it would be nice if a team of graphic artists could be hired just to provide me day by day with quirky little graphics that say "Mums birthday tomorrow, order flowers you terrible son"

Bye Bye Baby

18 months I managed to keep it. I really wanted to drive it to Plankey Mill on a hot summer day, but we didn't really get a hot summer day last year and now it is on it's way.
There have been times over the last 18 months where just going from A to B in it have cheered me up no end. Yes I know it was a mid life crisis car, but I wanted one and I enjoyed it. Oh...you would not believe how I enjoyed it.
Now common sense must prevail and instead of my MX5 Eunos doing 70 miles a day at 30MPG at £1.05 a litre  I am going to be driving a 1998 Nissan Primera running on LPG at .51p a litre.
The Primera was a steal at £625 on ebay and I should have it early next week. With the milage I do it will have paid for itself in 6 months.
But I think that there will be sunny days when I wish for the wind in my lack of hair and I would like the thrum of the steel exhaust and the push of power from the rear wheels.

It made me smile when I needed it.

I am really really going to miss her.

Laughter and Birmingham

Rebecca got us tickets to see Simon Amstell in May. Those readers in other parts of the world wont know the former popworld presenter who was so obviously bored when interviewing stars.
He left popworld and went on to host Never mind the Buzzcocks in which he trys to outgay John Barrowman which you can watch on you tube, very funny.
Now he is doing his own stand up which is getting great reviews.
A few weeks later thanks to Paul & Jean we are going to see the Birmingham symphony orchestra, this is a special concert chosen by Paul for us symphonic newbies, and it involves having a weekend away with Rebecca which makes it twice as lovely :-) It's good to have things to look forward too.

Drifting....

You know how on some days you start to drift a bit and remember things....

A little while ago I had an occasion to visit a place I used to live and work and as happens on or around the 3rd March every year I remember that it is Imogens birthday. Imogen is Tom's daughter, and Tom is a man that I used to work with (in the days when I was a baker).

Last time I talked to Tom was about 13 years ago (roughly) when Imogen was born so by now he should really have his hands full, yes my experience of teenage girls has made me a cynic, I admit it.
In fact as I remember Tom was A: quite unlucky and B: really enjoyed his peace and quiet, so I would imagine he has probably through some quirk of fate ended up with a daughter who is a drummer in a rock band or who plays the trumpet or maybe even bagpipes. That would be fun for him :-)

Anyway, for some reason even though I have trouble remembering my wifes birthday, my own anniversary, where I put my beer or what day it is, always around the beginning of March, I always remember her birthday, this girl I have never met. And then I think of Thomas and Ruth (his wife) and so this year I Googled him. And guess what, he has lost more hair than I have Hah!!!! although I may be slightly larger than him, ok a lot larger than him, so maybe that balances out.

Anyway, I emailed him this blog URL so now I have to wait and see if he leaves a comment, or you could send me an email Tom (ian@phortress.co.uk)

Olympia

There is nothing like getting up early to enjoy a 300 mille journey to a place you don't like, but I had to go to London so I got up and went.
Picked up Tony that I was working with and we headed down to Olympia to set up for an exhibition called One Life. The theme being ypou have a life and you need/want to change it.
We were near the investment section next door to a stand of people who taught people how to play the drums, keyboard, sax or guitar. Oh joy. learner musios all weekend.
When we got there the place was still being built, so it looked like this.

For those who have been to Olympia you know how huge it is, so there were sert times to be able to set up. Our time was 2pm to 4pm so we got that done and headed off to the Hotel.
I can recommend the Ibis hotel at Earls court, decent price, great staff, nice size rooms comfy beds and very clean.
I was on floor 10 and as with any floor 10 in London my view was over lots of other buildings for as far as the eye can see.
What was good though was at night they all lit up.
Nice.
I always bring my laptop and some dvd's and I had borrowed season 1 of Lost, so that took up the evening.

We were at Olympia at 9.30 for a 10am opening, only to find that it didn't open to the public until 1pm. Lovely. You see as exhibitors we were told what time we could get in, not what time it opened. So lots of standing around.
I had a look at the other stalls and discoverd that I could be a chocolate fairy:
It only costs £3000 to train to become a Chocolate Fairy

and I have been thinking about a career change. But this was the first thing I saw so best not to get carried off with the excitement. I thought that maybe I could look around some more.

I discovered that life coaching is a very big thing and there were at least 20 stalls advertising life coaching in it's differing formats. There was one company that could train you to bnecome a life coach and they proudly boasted to me that their youngest coach was 18.

I'm sorry, but for me the minimum qualifications for life coaching should be "reached 55 years of age and still has own teeth". I really dont want to be told about life from smooth chinned virgin who hasn't chosen his favorite wine yet.
Earn a great income as a life and business coach, and I was told "You dont have to have ran a business to do this", "it must help though?" I enquired. But no, it seems that you can be a life & business coach with no experience of either. Now call me a cynic if you wish.....
Life balanceing, now that is a different thing altogether. And what is more you can buy a life balancing kit.
I will let you look at this image to see if you want to buy the kit, or possibly you may have a few bricks lying around.

Of course it wasn't all silliness or silliness being taken seriously.
There was one stall where you could buy stones from Atlantis, and the lady on that stall must have been OK because the angels talked through her.
I was only a few minutes into a conversation when I started to have thoughts of Sandy's description of the streets of Los Angeles.
"You would do well in LA" I suggested in the vain hope that she may leave and go there now, or that perhaps the angls would fly her there post haste. But no, instaed I had to rudly walk away saying No thank you. But first I did manage to get a shot of the

literature just in case you nice people wanted to get involved.
So there we were in our little stall, trapped somewhere between the land of the chocvolate fairys and the pillers of awakening (also available on CD)

There was a lot of female empowerment going on, fortune telling and some amount of mumbling in wallside indian temples. There were hammocks that were made in Utopia (they couldn't show me on the map) yoga, meditation and a large amount of husbands who when they saw the diving goalie on our stand headed over like bee's round a honeypot of sanity. One poor bloke whose wife was looking to balance her Chakra promised that if he could sit in our comfy chair for 20 minutes and hide that he would buy whatever we were selling, after all she had just paid £50 to have a man transfer her energies from her hand onto paper so that he could read her.
It turned out he was genuinly interested so I have to call him on Tuesday.
It wasn't all silliness and weird stuff, there were loads of good things happening too, but the most fun was to be had with things like the fortune tellers coming to us and asking how we could fortell the outcome of football games.
Go figure eh!
Of course I may have been desensitised by the end of Saturday, so Jon also known as Graculus seemed to be quite normal.
Now Jon doesn't post his piccy on line usually, but he did one on his page so I will too.

We drank beer and talked and it was nice to actually meet up after knowing each other for so long.
I found the same kind of relatiionship that I did with Silver, more of a friend that you have not seen for a long time rather than someone you have never met.

These blogs are just modern versions of pen pals.

I thought he would be taller, must be all that walking wearing him down from the feet end.

Interesting times

Well, here I am spending my days in Olympia. It involves standing up for many hours and talking to lots of people.

But, there are some items of interest here and it may be that (if all goes well) there could be something new on the horizon. Much welcomed changes and the opportunity to once again do what I think I do best.

Can't say too much right now, we can only wait and see.