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New Years Resolution

Well, I guess it’s about time I make a new years resolution, and I think I’ve found a fairly easy one to try and keep up over the year…  This year I’m going to make an effort to keep my blog up to date!  Something I haven’t managed to do for a year or two now actually.  I used to be very good at updating my old blogspot blog, but it’s something I’ve really neglected to do more recently…

Anyway as you might have guessed I’ve managed to sort out the permissions on the blog, and it actually seems to be working alright, as far as I can see.  It should link in to the twitter account, so if you’re looking for a way to be notified when I update, follow me on twitter – twitter.com/mikes1988.

Anyway what do people think would be a reasonable amount to update the blog?  Should I aim for at least once a week?  Or would once a day be better?  Personally I think that once a week would be an achievable target, and I can actually think about what I’m writing, and the kind of media I’m posting…  I think if it was a daily thing I’d probably run out of useful and interesting things to mention, and I probably wouldn’t have enough interesting picures to make it worth my while actually updating, or your while reading…  So comments would be most appreciated on that front!

If you didn’t know, or hadn’t guessed I got a new camera for Christmas from Amanda.  It’s a Nikon D3000, and it’s pretty cool.  Got a flash the other day, and I’m now ready to snap away.  Took a lotta pictures during the last cold spell – the ‘Freeze of ’10’, if I can be bothered I’ll work out some sort of photo album to run on the server, and that might be another way to keep up with what I’m doing…  Although I’ll post a few to here too 🙂  Or look on Facebook, that tends to be a good place to find my random pictures!

Anyway, since the last well thought out blog I’ve probably been doing quite a lot…  In mid-December Amanda and I went to Munich for a short trip.  It was lovely, a very beautiful city, and I would recommend you go at some stage in your life…  We went during the Christmas market season, and it was amazing to see the variety of different stuff available.  The Germans really know how to do this Christmas lark!  Before that I don’t think I had much on until we go as far back as June, when we went to Toronto for a week.  Again another beautiful city, although most people I’ve shown pictures to have just said ‘It’s very grey’, which I don’t think is fair, yes it was a city, and it was built up, but it didn’t feel like a city, to be honest I would liken the pace of life to being in Carrickfergus or somewhere like that, not even as busy as Belfast, and certainly nowhere near London.

Got a new car in July – keeping with the Kas…  Although the new ones really have ‘grown up’ from the go-karty feel of the older style.  It’s also Diesel, a little different to drive, but a hell of a lot more economical!  Saves a small fortune in fuel costs compared to the SportKa, which, lets be honest, drank the Petrol!  Still, I miss it a bit, the 1.6 was good for a quick thrash on a nice summers evening, and it was hard to beat the handling of the wee car through the corners, and on the roundabouts 🙂  The funny thing is, I still see the wee car, there’s a grey haired guy form around Rathcoole driving it…  It’s nice to see the car in, what seem to be, careful hands, would hate to see it wrecked…

Anyway I’d better get back to studying, have an exam on the 25th, need to get movin!

Dirty car

Car was absolutely filthy there the last few days, thought it was about time to clean it. Used the jet wash at Fortfields, and now I’m soaked because the lance was leaking. Great! Least the cars clean though.

Enjoying a cup of coffee, from McDonalds, and watching some quiz show with kids in it, quite funny actually.

Got some NiMH batteries for flash, recycles so much faster, and it won’t cost me a bomb to run it now! Great!

Anyone see the program last night about the guy who had been hiccuping for 2 years or something? Was really interesting, and was cool to see the difference MRI scans can make to the medical world, just a shame they’re so expensive. The resolution was absolutely amazing though!

Anyway better go watch more TV with Amanda, cheerio!

Back to ‘Porridge’ Again

Was in Munich from Tuesday to Thursday. Nice time, lovely time of the year to visit Germany, the markets were something else, huge compared to the one over here!

Watching tv, just after making lovely bacon, scrambled egg and soda, which we all enjoyed..

Awk 🙁 penultimate episode of Wossy was last night. Jenson was great last night, he’s so cool!

Just noticed how dirty my car is, only washed it last week too! Need to do it again! Rage!!!

Christmas Dinner Over- Robbery-less

Ahh, didn’t get robbed this year, nice to know!   Last year we had a robbery the night of the Christmas Dinner in work, but this year went off without any issues!  Had a couple of fellas from Manse Road and they were a great help too…
Working all weekend sadly, tomorrow in my own shop, and Sunday in Lambeg…  Should be an interesting experience…  Steep learning curve!

Watching a thing about Tesco’s energy saving ideas – monitoring drivers braking, gear changing, indicating habits, sending these to Germany to analyse, and sending it back to the drivers with ‘tips’ on how to drive more efficiently…  Surely the lorry drivers should be concentrating on driving safely rather than efficiently?  Especially if they’re going to get a disciplinary for using too much diesel/gas…  I think they should re-assess their priorities regarding being ‘green’.  I agree they need to make cutbacks and do less damage to the environment, but that just isn’t a good idea?

Metro Buses

Well it doesn’t really affect me, other than wasting my time, but all the buses going to the North of the city aren’t going down Royal Avenue for a while.  They’re doing road works, so the buses are going down Chichester Street, then past Victoria Square and back down the High Street to the bottom of Royal Avenue.  It took the bus about 10 mins – the trip down R.A. normally takes about 2 minutes…  Great!

Ah well, maybe it’ll get better with a bit more time.  If people would actually abide by the ‘No Cars’ sign on the High Street it would probably be much much better…

Uni was alright, normal boring lecture, but hey.  Took notes on my phone, hopefully they’re usable lol…  Must have a wee look now…

Stuff as usual – Back to porridge!

Well – back at uni now a week and a wee bit. Fun! Strange being back after 3 months away from the place, but hey.

Just let my hamster out of his cage and I can’t get him back now, going to take a while, he usually gives up eventually haha… He’s a wee nutcase, however very very difficult to catch lol.

Updated/moved the church website to my server – http://newtownabbeymethodist.org.uk. Seems to be working alright. Glad I got it moved, saves me having to run the server at home anymore, and gives us a bit more scope to expand the website. Should possibly be able to set up podcasts due to the extra bandwidth too 🙂 Don’t know if it would be worth my while though!

Just watching Ruffles, he’s found his own way back to the cage, actually half expected him to climb back up into the cage himself, but he’s just walked away again lol. Poor wee thing…

DNS Moved Over

Finally got the DNS moved to my own server.  I had tried a couple of times before but it just wouldn’t work! 🙁

Went to see The Script last night, they were really good, quite enjoyed them.  Really late though, they didn’t until about 10pm, and we’d been there from about half 7, so it was pretty boring for about 2 and a half hours, although the support act – The Coronas – were really good too, enjoyed them, even though I’ve never heard of them lol.

Just about to head into Belfast to get some keys cut, then to go and grab lunch with my dad 🙂  Probably just sandwiches, but they’re yummy lol.

Anyway gotta goo, cheerio.