Monday, October 13, 2008

Yesterday

All my troubles... no. Yesterday was pretty good, really nice evening when the mist settled over the rec as I was walking back from the new youthy thing we set up. Street lights shining through, very pretty. Went really well for a first night, 24 through the door and I spent the evening messing around playing guitar, basket ball, chatting, table football. Its not really work is it.

Acoustic coffee house is looking positive as well, spoke to the music departments at one of the local schools who was almost embaressingly enthusiastic. Still trying to sort out the opening night properly, the Renaissance man might be playing which is always good.

Today we've been mostly sorting out stuff for this commissioning service thing. There is going to be drama, I'm going to be involved - this can only be a bad thing! Could be a laugh though. I'm also giving my testimony which should be good; apparently its a dramatic one, I'm not too sure. Hopefully it will come across nice and clear.

And tonight there is football, I've nobbled my knee so who knows how it will go. Hopefully we'll bounce back from last week though. Well its a nice thought!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Bringing you up to date

Moved into my new accomodation this weekend, very nice and eclectic but no interweb. This could slow blogging as I'll have to do it at work instead. Anyway whats been going on...

Monday we received our first drubbing in our first cup game, 5-1. They were fairly dirty players, at one point I won a free kick when there was some inappropriate cupping preventing me from taking the shot. But nevermind, as I don't really care and just play for fun it didn't really demoralise me that much.

Yesterday I had a chat with some of the guys who run a music thing from our building about the acoustic coffee house idea and they were keen to support which is nice. Makes my life easier, now I just need to do a bit more advertising. Might do some more of my favourite activity and phone some schools later and try and see if their music departments are interested.

Currently listening to: Neil's DAB digital radion in the office, he's got it set to Gold and we are all about the old school! Including House of the Rising Sun, yeah you know it!

Monday, September 29, 2008

So tired

The undefeated run has come to an end. Tonight we lost, 2-0, to the side that won the league last year. It could have been 1-1, against another team the same performance would have earnt us a win so I don't think there's anything to be disappointed about really (well the result, but in terms of the performance nothing)

Today has been pretty good all round really, had a quite encouraging phone call from one of the schools today which suggests we might be moving forward there and that Plan B might go down well in both schools. The new Eden's Cavern got the go ahead for a Thursday evening which should hopefully get more people through the door in the week and give me an opportunity to play some music which is one of the things I wanted to do this year so thats great as well.

The weekend was fantastic as well. The Francis Bacon retrospective is amazing and I recommend it to anyone. The sense of isolation and constriction in some of the paintings is incredible and the way the subjects are stripped of everything but "base emotion" is really quite powerful. That said I wouldn't really want him to paint my portrait! The Globe was nice as ever though the play made me realise that I don't know enough about the French Revolution. Still it was interesting to see how different philosophies were adopted and then abandoned and distanced from the revolution as their political need and position changed.

So all in all I am currently feeling very jolly with life and I think the weekend jolly is one of the reasons so thankyou to team vauxhall and team Morgan :)

Currently listening to: James Brown, The Essential Collection - fairly amazing, I don't think anything else need be said.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Working 9 to 5

Today: was an office day, woohoo. I wrote letters to grant type people and phoned schools (which was ineffective yet again). General pottering occurred really. Tomorrow is day off day which means a phone call to my mum, buying a paper (Independant, thursdays has the Education and Careers section, good for a rant!) and possibly a trip to the gym.

Correct Grammar?: the phrase above contains some interesting punctuation and I have no idea if its right. Where should those exclamation marks, parentheses and commas go?

Currently listening to: Lisa Hannigan, Lille. Very nice, I'd like the album but have no money so have to make do with listening to it on her website, which is all stitched and awesome. Check it... www.lisahannigan.ie


Monday, September 22, 2008

To transfer to our switch board...

Today: We found out how tricky it is to get into schools. Spent about half an hour on the phone to one school only to find out that the deputy head I was refered to last week (after a week of phone calls) had left school early and I couldn't speak to her. Meanwhile we're being told that we can't go into the other to set up a group as they worry that if they let us in they'll have to let in every religion including extremist groups. I can see where they're coming from but think there should be a bit more of an open forum and there should be an option for groups to go in.
Football tonight as well, can Eden's extend its unbeaten run to the first 3 matches of the league. And will I be as much of a cripple as after last weeks win!?!

In the news: Morgan Stanley have had to sell a 20% share to a Japanese bank. Bit crazy after Lehman Brothers collapsed and AIG were bought-out by the US government, etc. I do think independantly the economy would recover but it looks to be stretched out with the energy issues, food price issues and everything else at the moment. Could be interesting where things progress from here. Its all about decentralisation, time to start growing your veg in your back garden.

Randomly: The tele seems to be searching out Top Gear, the last 3 times I've switched on its gone to Dave despite the fact that's not what we've been watching when it was turned off.

Currently listening to: One World, John Martyn. Fantastic album, the last track, small hours, is incredible.

Currently reading: Transport and Neighbourhoods, Hank Dittmar. The last of the Edge Future books (or at least last in the order I've read them). Really good series looking at how the social set up of things needs to change in order to achieve more sustainability. I'd recommend them to people who like to rant about things.

A new adventure

Well this is interesting, a new technological stride forward. I've decided to move on from the facebook noting that accompanied the trip to Nepal to a, hopefully easier to navigate around, blog.

The idea is to record whats going on throughout the year, my thoughts that go with them and probably some other completely random things that come up as I read the paper, watch tele, etc. Basically its an excuse to rant and I thankyou for tolerating it in advance

Dan