…and it’s off to a great start. Both James and I managed to coordinate efforts to be up and ready at 6:05am for him to give me a lift into the gym for 6:30am.

What a winner! We were impressed that we’d both managed to achieve this, given that the earliest time either of us had been awake for the 2 week preceding had been about 9:30am. And that was early.

Even better still, as the schools are still off the roads were almost empty – so we bombed it in and made it to the gym at bang on 6:30am – just in time for it to open and give us maximum time in there before work!

Just in time for it to open… on a normal day, that is. For it is this, the week starting the 1st of January 2008, that the guys at the gym have decided to open at 9am for the next 3 days.

So that left James and I sitting in his car in the pitch black, dressed in gym kit and (myself anyway) unshaven and messy looking, wondering what the hell we should do now.

Luckily there are showers in our work’s building itself, so we went to the work car park and made our way to the building entrance… only to find that I’d not brought my pass.

A diversion later I got myself signed in, visitor passed up and in the building.

I’m now showered and a bit more alive than at 6:30am… but given that I’m at my desk over an hour before I should technically be starting work, without a pass and feeling rather tired given getting up far earlier than I would’ve if I were just coming into work today, that’s not much consolation.

Things, as D:Ream once rightly pointed out, can only get better.

Hey all!

Happy New Year!

As you have probably noticed there’s not been much in the way of blogs coming from me these past few months. It’s not because I’ve been doing nothing, it’s just because I’ve been too lazy to sit down and write about what’s been happening.

So, in summary:

• lots of work
• (one set of) snowboarding lessons
• designing and making Squage mugs
• saving money
• eating too much…
• drinking too much…socialising lots
• going to the gym… a bit…
• …putting on weight
• making a Christmas tree out of cans
• presenting a show on SGR Colchester
• starting to learn guitar again

I’ve probably missed lots off that too. But hey, you’ve now got an (at least vague) idea of what I’ve been up to in Nov/Dec 2007. Overall, it’s been a good year, helped largely by the whole “traveling in Oz” bit for the first half :-)

2008’s going to be a great year. I’m going to do the following:

• Drink less (maybe not at all, we’ll see how it goes)
• Get to a good weight and stay there
• Make money with art
• Be less stressed
• Get really good at the geetar
• Do something good for the world (somehow)
• Stop being bitter and single :-)

That’s the plan. Hope you’ve got a good list of things you want to achieve – and good luck with them!

Here’s to 2008!

*chink*

Pat

F*£king Legend!

“What the hell?” You might ask. Well, if you did then I guess you’ve never seen Kevin Bloody Wilson live, because if you’d seen him you’d know he ends up coming back to that song salute several times during a set.

You’d also know that he’s fecking hilarious!

Last Tuesday evening the Old Server Team Crew (consisting of Jimbo, Gib, Tony and myself) trundled along Saffend sea front and to the Cliffs Pavilion Theatre for a night of entertainment. And entertained we were.

After a long and taxing (for old man Tony anyway ;-) ) walk up the steps to the Cliffs, we made it to the bar to grab a nice chilled pint to start the evening off. Alas, it seemed for some reason the Cliffs figured it only needed 2 rather slow bar staff to cater for many, many beer hungry attendees so by the time I’d got served I ended up getting 2 pints each rather than one.

A quick necking later we were in the theatre itself, whereupon James revealed that he’d actually bought us tickets in the 2nd row! This was both great and worrying news:

• Great – We’d be right there in front of the action with an awesome view
• Worrying – We’d be in full “have the piss ripped all night” view

You might think that I’m being a wuss with the worrying (Yes, yes we do – Squage) but it’s with just cause: the last time I was close to the front of a comedy gig I had my face licked to death by a mental, sweaty canadian. Phil Nichol’s a frightening man.

Anyway I needn’t’ve worried as both Kevin and his support act were lovely and only ended up picking on one poor bugger who’s birthday it was (who was amusingly unimpressed).

Speaking of the support act, she was great. None other than Kevin’s own daughter, Jenny Talia (yes, Jenny Talia) was damned funny herself, following in her father’s footsteps of performing her own damned funny and clearly-not-for-kids tunes (highlight probably being “The Bastard Song”) with some great chatty bits inbetween to the great entertainment of everyone there.

We like her stuff so much we decided to buy two of her albums between us… and even got a photograph with her:

I was worried that my phone camera wouldn’t quite do the job in dim light, but as you can see this picture is PERFECT so that’s lucky!

After a short interval (and an obligatory pint) we sat back in our seats for the main event… who did not disappoint.

From “Do Ya F*** On First Dates”, through classics like “DILLIGAF”, “It Was Over”, “Five Seconds Of Foreplay” and “The Public Hair Song” to a sing-along version of “Santa Claus You C***”, Kev was definitely on form. That’s not even mentioning the great stand-up bits inbetween songs, or, of course, the ever-returning “Nigel” (who I believe is a f***ing legend).

The man himself, although thanks to the Nokia 6300 you can hardly tell…

All in all, an awesome night. It was their last date on the current tour so they’ll not be back in the UK for a fair bit, but if you ever get a chance in future, SEE THEM.

I’d not laughed that much in such a long time… we were all still laughing as we left the theatre, on the drive home and indeed I spent a good part of Wednesday morning laughing at my desk. The last bit was possibly because of the Kevin Wilson and Jenny Talia MP3s I was listening to, to be honest…

Jimbo: I salute you for booking those tickets. Tony: I salute you for driving us there and driving a drunk us back. Gib: I salute you for the awesome 5 litre barrel of joy you provided me yesterday – although that’s not really relevant to this post.

Right, lunch break over. On with writing envelopes and playing with Excel. Live the dream.

Tarrah,

Pat

…they really suck.

In particular when I start listening to songs that remind me of lying under the stars in the middle of Australia… makes me wonder what the heck I’m doing now.

It’s perfectly possible for me to just sod off out to, say, NZ and just work in a hostel / for a tour operator… or who knows what else.

I mean, it wouldn’t really solve the big “Hmm, what do I really want to do in future?” question, but at least it’d be good fun and chilled.

Heheh, you know, it only seems to be Monday mornings where I start thinking like this. Not exactly productive, but hey that’s Monday mornings for ya ;-)

I might have a watch of this again to cheer me up.

Toodles,

Pat

P.S. Twas a top weekend this weekend – DJed George and Stef’s wedding reception over in Gloucester, which was hilarious fun! Congrats again you two :-D

“Yep. That’s it. I’m not longer a Systems Engineer. I’m unemployed.”

The above is what I’d written 365 days ago. Yep, it was a year ago that I quit work in order to go on the Big Adventure. To be honest, it seems like longer than that.

Not sure how I feel about it to be honest. I think I feel a little sad that right now I’m stuck in an office and definitely not heading on a plane to the other side of the world in the next couple of weeks, but on the other hand I feel really happy. Happy that a year ago, despite my feelings of concern, I did it. I buggered off around the world. And what an amazing time it was.

For the record: I’m definitely doing it again. I just don’t know exactly when :-)

Aaaannnyway, onto more recent times: in the past month I’ve been doing the following things:

• Working
  It’s been two months at my former-and-now-current employer and I’ve finally settled into the swing of things – and despite the occasional rocky day (where I wake up thinking “Aaah why am I not traveling the world right now instead of working in an office?”) I’m finding things ok. It’s really not too bad.
• Gyming
  Amazingly I’ve kept up my gym visits over the past two months – probably because I’ve been going before work and not after work (which rarely used to happen through spending the day convincing myself of reasons why I shouldn’t go). Despite the occasional bad week, I’ve definitely been doing well. I just need to cut down on eating and drinking quite so much!
• Socialising
  Lots. Gary and Sarah’s wedding (which was lovely), visiting Paul and Em (hilarious weekend in Ireland), visiting Kate and Jen from traveling (awesome weekend in Nottingham), catching up with Lev and Jess (and recording some rather amusing audio bits and pieces (more info to come on that one), to eating some damned fine home made curries round Gary-from-work’s house with some of the work lads. Photos are available in the usual place, of course.

Tonight I’m going Go Karting for free. There are definitely benefits of being a member of my gym…

Toodles,

Pat

On Saturday, I DJed a wedding reception.

As per my usual “hmm, I’ve not DJed in a while, I’d better check what to play and that I’ve got everything” pre-DJing tasks were performed throughout the day, which went pretty well. After a quick trip into Brentwood to grab the lights and PA that I’d hired, I headed off to the wedding reception venue, about 15 minutes from home.

All was going well – I’d got there with ample time to spare (I wanted to do that on the off-chance that I’d forgotten something (perish the thought…)) – so much so that, as the post-wedding proceedings were running late (that’s pretty standard in my experience), I was invited in to have some food with my mates (one of whom’s mum was the bride). This was really lovely of them – and had me in a nice happy mood ready to get going with the set.

Once dinner was finally over, it was getting rather late so I needed to get set up asap so that there’d actually be an evening’s partying to be had!

Alas on finally getting the equipment set up, I realised I’d left my laptop at home.

Not too much of an issue, you’d think. After all, I’d got the CD players, my CDs, the amp+speakers and lighting. Why need the laptop anyway, right? Well, imagine this scenario: you have your entire playlist worked out and in an Excel Spreadsheet. You’ve got a list of ALL your songs, with the CDs they’re on in a handy Excel Spreadsheet. Oh and you’ve managed to download a copy of the First Dance, which you didn’t own on CD, and by the way decided not to bother actually burning it onto a CDR.

Now imagine that this is on the laptop that’s at your home, rather than at the gig.

Yeah.

That was luckily the worst part of the evening, although it remained a bit stressy after that: once I’d rushed home and back, I had the laptop ready to plug in – but of course people saw I was back so expected tunes immediately, so I had to find and select songs inbetween plugging the laptop in, getting it all set up nicely to use – oh and rigging the lighting.

At least it was worth it. I’d managed to keep people… er… close to the dance floor all night. Bit of a tricky audience, but hey – that’s what happens sometimes. It did mean that I spent a fair amount of the evening stressing, thinking “Shit, my playlist I spent hours on isn’t working… and neither are these tried and tested classics… what the HELL do I play next?”, though.

Needless to say by the end of the night I was ker-nackered… but bloody glad I was DJing a wedding reception at a nearby town and not, say, 90 minutes drive away. Now THAT would’ve been interesting…

Pat

On Wednesday I signed up across the road from work. Yesterday I went for an hour long induction. Today I had my first session.

Yep. I’ve joined the gym.

No, before you scoff at me and point out that I’ve tried the gym regime a number of times in the past, with varying levels of failure, allow me to point out a few differences:

• I’ve got a couple of gym-legend workmates giving me advice and encouragement through each session
• I’m paying for it now, so there’s an obligation to get value for money
• I’m going before work starts. All it requires is getting a reasonably early night and then the early wake up isn’t actually too bad – and even if it is, after 30 minutes in the gym I’m already feeling much, much more awake and ready for the day. Also, it means I can go out in the evening without having to worry about arriving late/skipping an after-work gym session to accommodate it. Oh and finally, it means I don’t spend the whole of my working day thinking of excuses why I shouldn’t go to the gym, as in previous “after work” gym attempts…

If I’ve (just about) convinced you that this will work this time then that’s good.

Let’s just hope it’s actually true. :-)

Toodles,

Pat a.k.a. “Fruit Cake”
(Apparently “Beef Cake” wasn’t appropriate for a veggie…)

This may come as a surprise to those of you who I’ve not spoken to for a while. I’ve gone back to my former employer.

But wait! Before you say “Hey, what the hell?”, allow me to explain a few things.

Firstly, it’s a good place to work.

One of the things I found through talking to the myriad of people I met on my travels, plus also through speaking to long time friends about their experiences, was that there are plenty of things that my former-sorry, current employer provides and does that exceed many other companies. I’ll not go into details, but I heard plenty of stories from people about their employers that made me think “Jeez, how do they get away with treating their employees like that?”.

Essentially, I’ve been able to get some perspective on it all.

Secondly, I’m viewing this as a positive thing for me.

It’s going to provide me with the funds I need to have a good lifestyle outside work, spend my free time on things I enjoy doing (such as the cartoon bits and pieces, radio stuff etc) with no financial pressures on them, plus save up money for any future plans I might have.

It also means I can start going down the gym with James and Andreas from work. Having people to go with, keep you motivated and help you plan your goals etc is invaluable when it comes to things you don’t necessarily enjoy doing – e.g. running until you think you’re going to die, lifting weights until you think you’re going to die… you get the idea :-)

But, anyway, there we go. I’m back. To a clean desk:

So far it’s been an easy few days, mainly because I’m still waiting on most of my IDs to get sorted out so I can actually start doing anything… but hey, it’s good to see everyone again and I’m looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into the projects I’ve got lined up.

I’m also looking forward to the 28th of September. A.k.a. Payday

Toodles,

Pat