So far, the wallpaper has been stripped, walls have been sanded, the woodchip wallpaper is off the ceiling, and we’ve started sticking up a false wall. Jen (SWMBO) managed to get stuck up a set of ladders whilst stripping the woodchip off the ceiling. Being the good husband-to-be that I am, I helped her down… didn’t I? Apparently not:

Well, that’ll be me in the bad books. Anyway, moving on from that.. We stripped the wallpaper and started prepping the walls for paint. I say ‘we’ – in reality it was SWMBO and her dad. Here she is in her sanding get-up:

For me though, the most interesting part of the work is being carried out on the opposite wall. This is the wall where the tech is going. My 32″ Sony Bravia will be going here. Along with some coax cable, Cat5e and power. Click on the thumbnails to get a view of how the wall is progressing:

Hopefully tomorrow night I’ll be able to get the remainder of the plasterboard up with Robert’s help and we’ll then be able to get it plastered and painted. After that, we can start moving in – and get started on the living room.

I’m pretty pleased with the way things are working out – it’s taking just a little bit longer than expected, but once it’s done, I’ll be a happy man. A tired, but happy, man.

Oh, I almost forgot – here’s a video look at the bedroom as of yesterday:

What’s Twestival? Well, straight from the Twestival site, its something like this:

On Thursday 25 March 2010, people in hundreds of cities around the world will come together offline to rally around the important cause of Education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness. Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good. All of the local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects.

In Glasgow, I was the lead organiser, for my sins. We had less time than usual to organise it – 4 weeks to be precise. In that time, we had to find a venue, a headline sponsor, some bands, a compere, a photographer and some raffle and auction items. Oh, and we had to get it all for free. I’m delighted to say that we did, in fact, manage it. We even had time to produce a video beforehand:

We set a target of £2500. I thought that was a VERY adventurous target, considering the timeframe. It turns out I was WAY off. At last count, we raised around £6500! To say I’m astounded is an absolutely understatement. It was such a huge achievement, and I know that Concern can do a whole load with that cash.

Our headline sponsor, iomart Group went nuts on Twestival this year. Not only were they sponsors of the Glasgow Twestival, they also sponsored the London Twestival, and provided a cocktail bar and smoothie bar in Glasgow and London respectively. That wasn’t all though. Phil from iomart attended both events. He kicked off in London, and made a 400 mile trip with a road cone – Glasgow’s unofficial mascot, picking up autographs along the way! Phil Collins did Live Aid, Phil Worms did Twestival. So what’s next? Some sleep. A lot of it:

A huge thanks to everyone who helped pull this event together and make it what it was. The next one will be in August/September, and I’ll be there. Will you?

It’s always interesting starting a new job. Meeting new people, remembering their names, finding out what they like/dislike… just being sociable in general. Luckily, I’ve gone full time in a place where I have been temping. Same department, different job, and different location, so the transition from old to new hasn’t been the upheaval it might have been if I’d switched employers. By and large, I’ve managed to hit the ground running.

I appear to have found a niche in the work that I do, but I’m not going to allow myself to become to comfortable. After all, this is only a 12-month contract. I need to push the boundaries and go beyond my comfort zone if I want to pick up new skills. New skills which may help be find a new job if, after 12 months, this temporary position isn’t made permanent. Intertwined with that, I need to start studying again. I’ve been talking about it for long enough, but it’s time that I actually got that Microsoft certification I’ve been planning. I’ve got all the training materials – I just need to start using them.

I’ll be tough not to let this diminish my other interests. I’m still a keen photographer, and I really want to forge ahead with some radio work. After all, the long-term goal is to move abroad with the missus where she can get a nursing job, and I can proceed in radio. However, I need to pay the bills now, and the IT industry is paying. Radio is not (for the most part).

So that’s about it from me for the moment… I’ll try to write again soon, but as you’ve already seen, that may be a problem for me.

I’ll leave you with the video on the right. Courtesy of @RadioPaulo.

It’s been a bit of a journey to get them, to be honest. I had to wait A-G-E-S to get served in the shop, so I whinged about it on Twitter, and immediately got a follow from Richer Sounds. They’ve offered me a tenner for my trouble, but I can’t imagine what else I’d buy out of there.. I’m poor AND I’m getting married!

Moving on from that, I decided to mount them on the wall yesterday, and the first speaker went up fine. The second speaker however, did not. It lasted all of two minutes before all 1.4kg of it started to come away from the wall. There was nothing else I could do but curse myself for making four bloody big holes in my nice, newly decorated wall.

Fast forward to today, and a chat with one of my colleagues, Brian. He’s an Active Directory wizard now, but he’s a joiner to trade. He suggested larger rawl plugs, so off I went to B&Q after work, and I bought the next two sizes of rawl plugs. I got home, tried them out, and BINGO! I now have a pair of speakers on the wall, not just one lonely speaker. I was on a roll, so I got my nice glass shelves from Ikea – which have been sitting in their boxes for weeks – and stuck them up on the wall. Now I think I’m a DIY god!

I’ve christened my speakers by playing The Jam Song, and I’m now load-testing the shelves! Woo!

Oh, and before I forget, check out ‘AutoTune The News’ on YouTube! It’s excellent!

It seems, however, that everyone knew but me. That’s not strictly true, but it certainly felt like that last night. Yesterday was also her birthday, and a group of her friends and I were summoned by Robert to be at a restaurant for a surprise party. When I say ‘surprise’, I really just mean it as a figure of speech – again, there was some amount of hinting during the weeks in the run-up to this meal.

Anyway, I digress. We had a lovely meal, and when the meal and birthday cake were dispensed with, Robert stood up and started to make a speech. I thought it was odd that he would be making a speech at my sister’s birthday meal, and then it clicked. It wasn’t long before the ring box came out, and he’d dropped to one knee. She naturally said yes, there was much applause and serving of champagne, followed by a few people asking me if I knew this would be happening. I did not. It turns out though, that a few of her friends did.

Why not me? Well, family wasn’t to know. My mum didn’t know, but this was also true of my dad. Oops. He doesn’t look that bothered, but I think he might have liked to have been asked beforehand. It turns out Robert’s dad knew though, so I guess I’m feeling bad for my dad at this stage.

It wasn’t quite like this video though..

This is and idea I’ve toyed with for a while now, but two things have been stopping me: the lack of a home for the blog and the the will to do it. I’ve managed to muster up the will now, and thanks to those nice people over at 1-2-3 Reg, I managed to score myself a .info domain for the measly sum of 88 pence.

Yes. 88. Pence.

So here I am, this is me. I’m not really sure what form this blog will take, and I’m hoping it’ll just ‘come together’ over time. It may be that I end up posting a series of links/photos/videos I like, but equally, I may produce award-winning literary works (although that’s unlikely).

Anyway, to start us off, here’s a video I produced recently. It features my good friend Steven Scott. The joke here is that he’s visually impaired. Enjoy!