New Kitchen

I posted sometime back about a kitchen redesign I had planned. Well, the time has come for work on it to finally begin (tomorrow morning!). Below are my final designs for the kitchen and I'll be posting up some before, during and after pictures for comparison as the week progresses (actually hoping it's only going to take a couple of days :) )

British Summertime 2008

Has been and gone yet again. It's bucketing it down outside as I type this and this is the BBC weather forecast for the next 5 days here in (notso)sunny Stoke-on-Trent:


So, that's "predominantly heavy showers" non-stop all week then. Great.

As long as it clears up for Saturday as I've planned to have a day out with the family at Alton Towers.

Linkin Park Revolution - Milton Keynes National Bowl - June 29th 2008

Had great fun at the Linkin Park & Jay-Z Project Revolution over at the Milton Keynes National Bowl yesterday. It was a long day, we left Stoke-on-Trent at 9:30 a.m. and arrived back at 2:00 a.m. the next day but was well worth it. Journey time was around 2 hours and the roads were pretty clear. Only problem I've got now is that I'm sunburnt to hell! My arms are like red hot pokers and theres a unmissable dividing line between my overly burnt head and my much paler body. I got some funny looks in the gym today that's for sure! (get your heads out of the gutter :p ). I thought I'd prepared well by taking a coat and change of clothes for if it rained but who'd have though the sun would be out in full effect eh! Bloody *UN*typical British weather. Oh well, live and learn and next time the sun tan lotion will definately be taken along. :)


Anyway, once we'd queued for a ridiculous amount of time, we got in and headed straight to the VIP area for our wristbands. Guess where mine was! (see right ->).
The VIP area wasn't large or have that much more in it but what it did provide was seats and shorter bar queues, something which was most appreciated during bands and at the end of the night. There were slighty posher toilets as well although the queue for the blokes always seemed to be longer than the womens (something I thought I'd never see) and so a trip to the open air 'peeing-station' was called for. It's a bit odd peeing into a plastic trough while the crowd just walks past (there was a thin fence around it) but when you gotta go, you gotta go :D

Band-wise we missed Inner Sound System (who?) and just caught the tail-end of The Bravery. Enter Shikari were next up and although they're not to my taste they were loud and seemed to have plenty of fans in there. They were certainly encouraging the mosh pits and circles, something which probably didn't go down too well with the at-times overly zealous security officials. Up next were N.E.R.D. and they played a really good set. I'm not well up on their tracks but they were pretty good from what I heard. They also took crowd participant to the next level by inviting half a dozen ladies or so from the crowd up onto the stage. It was funny to see some of them still with cameras in hand trying to take a photo of Pharell Williams as he danced with them. Although fair play to him, he actually took the camera off one of the ladies to pose with her and take a picture of them both together. This was being shown on the large screens at the time and brought a massive round of appreciative applause from the crowd!

to be continued.... (bedtime now!)

Wazzzuuuuupp!!!

I've neglected the blogging for a while as you might have noticed. I've not given up, I've just got pre-occupied with other things.

My life in bulletpoints! :)

• Joined a gym - managing to go around 3 times a week and enjoying it. I've got a lot of exercise to catch up on having done nothing but be stuck in front of pcs for the last 15 years or so.
  
• Started playing 5-a-side - bloody hard but good fun. After all these years I'm still crap at football but I don't care anymore!
• Got a new pc - Bought a new Intel Quad Core PC. Way faster than my previous comp and only problem is that my MIDI keyboard for my music no longer works as there's no drivers available for Vista :(
• Designing a new kitchen - We've ditched the extension idea which means that we can go ahead with redoing the kitchen. Initial design here but we've since been to the B&Q summer sale where they were selling unit fronts for £1 !!!! Have now got new designs to complete but they're not too different.
• Linkin Park - Off to see LP on Sunday at Milton Keynes Bowl along with Jay-z, Pendulum, NERD, Enter Shikari and The Bravery. Treated myself & capn Jack to VIP tickets too. Looking forward to that and looks like it's going to be a long day given that it starts at midday!

Right, got some more rendering to do. catch ya later :)

The Price You Pay....

For the first time in his four & half year existance, little Joshy finally had his first haircut at the barber shop. This makes a change from either mummy or myself doing it with the hair clippers, something that the neighbours must have thought we were trying to kill him he screamed so much over it. It's probably my fault that he doesn't like having his hair cut since I once nicked his ear with a pair of scissors trying to cut off one of them stray hairs (didn't realise an ear would bleed so much!!!!). So, time to get my hair trimmed and I thought I'd ask him if he wanted his cut too expecting the usual "when I'm five" answer. He iffed and arred and so I said I'd throw in a new England strip if he agreed to it (I know...I'm a sucker!) and suprisingly, he agreed. Even better, when he was sat in the seat, he was unbelievably calm and seemed to enjoy the experience......yay!

Not one to renege on my blatant bribe, I took him down to JJB to take a look at the strips on offer. On arrival he asks me who the team in blue are on the poster outside JJB sports. It is of course Chelsea but a swift "this is not the team you are looking for" Jedi mind trick (learned from Amy ;)) soon puts paid to any thoughts of him taking home said strip. Once inside we head to the replica shirts section to check out and the England strips and he sees the Man Utd ones. Now I'm not sure where it came from (there are a couple of kids in the street that he plays with who also have Man U strips) but he knew who that kit belonged to. "Daddy, is that Manchester and United?" he asks. Ok, he's not quite got the name right but he's spot on. "Yep, it is, England shirts are this way" I reply. "I want a Manchester shirt. A red one with number 10 on it" he say's. I show him a few other shirts but at this point he just wants a Man U strip and when a four year old sets his mind on wanting something then it's only going to end in tears if you don't give in and bow to their demand (a bit like a wife really! :p )

And so, sporting a new haircut and Man Utd strip (with the number 10 on the back!) we now have one very happy son as you can tell in the photo above. He couldn't wait to get the strip on and go outside in it.

That's the first football strip excursion done and dusted. Could have been worse I suppose had he decided he wanted the blue strip, I think I might have taken the tears if that had happened. And thank goodness they currently don't sell any red and white striped shirts, that's more than this father could bear!!! :o