I was thrown a surprise 'Pirates Only' birthday party on Sat night for my 30th thus fulfilling a childhood dream of one day being a real-life Pirate. S and R spent far too much time sorting out the food and K masterminded a fantastic event. It was sooo much fun. More pics at flickr.
S came round this morning to drop off a present for my birthday - on the understanding that I had to wear it in public at some point soon. It is so funny - cannot believe the trouble he has gone to :)
We had the village around last night for the grand opening (and drinking) of my 1975 port magnum. It always seems a shame to open such an old bottle but the vintage was ready this year and what better than my 30th for it. Needless to say - the cork required some work but, despite coming out in several bits, it had held its seal. The port was lovely - I have never tasted such a smooth one before! J bought me a present (see below) which I think is inspired - I am having my morning coffee from it right now...
Ahhh - it finally happened. Despite attempting to put it off by by pickling myself over the weekend it finally caught up with me and today turned up on schedule. I am now officially no longer in my late mid-twenties. However, on the bright side I don't *feel* any older and I have been given presents. Thanks to all of you for your birthday messages!
Have just has one of the best weekends ever. As my birthday surprise K flew me out to Dublin for the weekend - with 6 of my best friends too! We stayed in the Westin, drank champagne, had breakfast in bed, went to the Guinness storehouse, watched the F1 Qualifying in the Long Stone, ate chicken wings at the E&C and had surprise cake, sipped hot-choc around St. Stephen's Green, caught a live band in the Porter House - generally we had an utterly UTTERLY fantastic time!
C has some pics here and I'll get some more up later here
It was an awesome weekend!
How can you tell when K's car has been in for service? Because it is the only time that it comes back clean :)
Have just come back from a very busy weekend in Bristol upgrading a client's systems. Actually I came back on Mon afternoon to go to Uni that night (several hours of statistical maths) and then returned to Bristol on Tue to finish off. Am very tired! Kitten however, is very awake! Max and he seem to be 'tollerating' each other better than before which is promissing. I am having to be carfeul with him though - on more than one occasion today I have found him on my keyboard typing random stuff into my machine :( PS - we won (again!!) the pub quiz last night...
We picked Rasmus up at 20:00 last night. He was very quiet when we got him home (mainly as he was recovering from his first injections still) but still managed to run around a bit before finding a box and going to sleep. Max is VERY unsure about this new thing in his house but has not tried to kill him yet which is good. Rasmus was very quiet all night and when we came down this morning it would appear that he had been asleep in his box all night. Since then he has been a bundle of energy - has eaten a massive breakfast and found the litter tray - all good.
We pick up our new kitten 'Rasmus' this evening. Be sure that there will be lots of pics coming soon of small fluffy kitten. In the mean time check out the link in the title - had us laughing until we were in tears last night ;)
A and I visisted our local pub after the KNW meeting last night. As we arrived they were half way through a pub quiz and just taking a break. The lanlord (R) sauntered over and asked if we wanted to catch up. Seeing as it was a free quiz we thought we'd go for it. We rattled through 20 questions and then sat down to join in for the last 20. Well, we won (by some margin)! Not only that but we were then given the prize (unexpected) which was a 'gallon of beer', or in reality 8 1-pint beer tokens valid for 7 days! WOOHOO - BEER TOKENS - FREE BEER!!
Things are looking better this week. I sorted out the bank at last, my cold is going and on Thu.... we pick up Rasmus :) :) :) Also had a very good night at Uni, my Sunday studying paid off well. K bought home a HUGE cardboard box from work which I think will be turned into the "Rasmus Hus 3000" - this cat is so spoilt already, and we don't even have him yet!
A busy weekend so far. Tod made a surprise visit on Fri night for dinner - cunningly organised by K. Have not seen him for 8 years or so - was great to catch up and have a beer. Yesterday was spent fixing the non-flushing toilet (I am now a master of WC plumbing) which now fills far more quickly and quietly followed by purchasing lots of kitten toys and making a kitten house from a cardboard box. Max thinks it is Xmas - wait unitl Thu Max :) We woke up early this morning to catch the F1 - which was dissapointing and I have just returned from Uni where I spent an hour in a Library (or LRC as they call it). oh - and I appear to have a cold - great!
Our remortgage has *just* completed after a very painful experience. Everything was going so well until the start of this week. It was meant to complete on Mon but the solicitors forgot something (they say the bank changed a process but I am not sure) so I had to sign and post another form. It then took until today to get them to complete it despite me calling every day! Due to the late start I ran into the non-discounted part of my old mortgage meaning a HUGE payment (nearly twice normal) on the first of the month. Add that to the lost interest due to this overrun and the up-front payment on the new mortgage and I am VERY VERY VERY poor this month and not at all happy.... This was further exagerated when it turns out that the bank has the wrong account number to take the DD from and cannot seem to find a way to change it (despite having me on hold for over 20 mins). I have to call back on Mon. GRRRRRR. HUFF!!!!!
I have been using PE3 for the last 6 months and it is ok(ish). My main annoyances are that it is very flakey and does not work well under Vista. Something Adobe promissed but never delivered. However, they have now launched version 4.0 and I have just found out that it *will* work on Vista 64. As such it is well and truely on my birthday wish-list :) Main feature improvements include direct-to-youtube and sharing the same organiser as PSE6 Elements. There is a very good review in the link in the title and the Adobe Forums here.
This time of year is always fun - various family members always ask me what I want and I never know. Well, this year I am 30 and to mark the magnitude of this year I spent some time thinking of a birthday-wish-list. Here goes, in order of preference:
1 - Money towards a Canon 40D camera body
[This is the one I really want most!!]
2 - Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 and Premiere Elements 4
3 - Pantone Huey Pro
4 - Megadeth 'United Abominations' CD
5 - PGR4 for the XBox360
6 - 28 Weeks later DVD
7 - Flickr pro account
8 - Bioshock pc game
K and I went again to the cat lady to look at kittens. We had thought we were going to go for the black one - several posts down - but just weren't sure. In the end we changed our mind for the grey/black one. Everyone - say hi to Rasmus! We pick him up next Thu....
J and I went to Helitech for the afternoon yesterday. *LOTS* of helicopters on show and even surprise military flypasts. We also bumped into W who was wearing a suit....this I have *never* seen before and am still recovering from. I have loads of pics on flikr (link in title).
We had our first fire of the year this weekend and it was lovely. Max decided to celebrate by dragging a pigeon into the house whilst we were out.....
