August 28, 2003

Summer Leaves

Today, for the first time in months I've had to put a jumper on. It's a sure sign the summer is on it's way out. I can see the leaves on the trees turning colour and there's already a large patch of them on the grass in my garden.

For me, all the seasons bring things I like and some things I don't. I like autumn because of the array of colours the landscape gives off. Leaves crunch under your feet as you go for a walk and you have to wrap up that little bit more.

In just over 4 weeks time, October, as a member of the autumn season, indicates the yearly venture of styling the bum fluff on our faces. October heralds Beards 2003. Without a doubt, Phil was the worthy winner last year with a goatee that was marvelled and respected by all. Even continuing with the facial hair for far longer than the stipulated one month period. There were also a few noted absentees from the event...you know who you are. I expect better this year.

August 24, 2003

Football Overdose

Not a great day for football today from my point of view.

Firstly, my Sunday morning team Stour Park Rangers went down 5-1 against Image Wheel Kestrels. Couple this with a 4-2 defeat last week and you could say we haven't had a great start to the season. Things can only get better, right?

My other team, Liverpool, which I unfortunately don't play for, are also looking for their first win of the season. After losing 2-1 to Chelsea last week, a win against Villa would have been very welcome today. However, this wasn't to be. A dreary 0-0 draw was all they could manage. At least we've got a point now, but we're still in an early season dogfight with the Wolves down there at the foot of the table. I did get chance to improve my tan though, as I was sitting right in full view of the blazing sun.

August 22, 2003

The Very First (Official)

Well, I couldn't wait any longer, I had to get Movable Type up and running. Unfortunately, that means using a standard design template which I've tweaked a little. You can bet your bottom dollar that the site design will be changing quite a bit over the next week or so while I try and find something I'm at least half-happy with!

So this is the first weblog update using MT (apart from some tests I did). It's a damb fine bit of kit, and after just a little usage I've found updates to be really easy...hell, even Al could post an update on here!

With the amount of time I've spent in the last week searching and reading about site design, CSS etc. etc. I think I'm turning into a bit of a techie! I'm even reading User Friendly on a daily basis!

For The Last Time

Hopefully this will be the last of my "manual" diary updates as I've finally got Movable Type installed on my webspace. It took a while as there was a problem getting some modules for the database loaded on, but the excellent Dave from CDS-Net worked some magic and solved the problem. Also, not forgetting some much needed help from Mart during the instillation.

It's not up and running yet as I've been playing around with the settings and templates, trying to come up with a style that a like. I'll get there eventually with a layout that, hopefully, is pretty unique and doesn't look like Mart's! Not that there's anything wrong with your site Mart, it's just that I don't want to copy ;-)

August 18, 2003

Pics Away

I've been slaving away for many hours to get the holiday photos up onto the site. I've put them onto four pages so they don't take too long to load up. You can check the first gallery out here! The link to the next gallery is at the bottom of each page.

If anyone spots any problems, let me know.

August 16, 2003

Returning

Back from a fantastic week in St. Ives with the guys! Check out some of the pics here! Not much on there at the moment, you'll have to bear with me for a while, I'm pretty knackered right now and need my sleep! I'll get them all up over the next few days!

August 08, 2003

Finally

Well, the exams are all over!

After a disappointing exam yesterday that included a compulsory question which was even worse than I could have imagined, today's went much better! The general consensus from the rest of the guys that took the exam yesterday felt that the question was so difficult to understand nobody actually got a complete solution, because nobody knew what the solution was! So after the coding exam yesterday, I wasn't really looking forward to the program design paper today. However, thankfully I was in the zone with one of the two optional questions and just went for it!

What better way to celebrate the end of the exams than to go on holiday! I'm off to St Ives tomorrow morning with Al, Mike and Si. Phil may be joining us at some point during the week.

The weather is good, my exams are over, I'm going on holiday and I've got a new pair of shorts for the occasion! What else do I need!?

August 07, 2003

Read 'Em

I've just finished reading The Amber Spyglass, which was an absolutely amazing finish to the His Dark Materials trilogy, also comprising Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife. Go out and buy these books now. They are truly awesome and offer fantasy adventure of the highest order.

August 06, 2003

Almost There

One down, two to go.

The first of my exams are out of the way, it was supposed to be an oral exam, but turned out to be just a chat with one of the City & Guilds examiners. He had a leaf through my project, trying to find something he could pick me up on, but I'm pleased to say he didn't find anything. Ha ha! At least it's quite cool in the exam room, they've got good air con! More revising tonight and in the morning ready for the next one tomorrow afternoon.

I just hope the air con doesn't pack up!

Oh yeah, check these films out, they're pretty good!