The Love Birds Big Challenge

Today I’m struggling to write, the reason for this was that last night I went for the old “meal and a few drinks”. I’m sure that no matter how limited your life experience is, you know that what actually resulted was a messy night out.

The reason I went for to the meal and a few drinks was to see off a good friend as she abandoned us to spend another summer teaching little brats lovely children how to drown swim as part of the Camp America program. This is something she clearly loves doing because this is her third successive year on the program. However, unlike previous years, this year she has had a reason not to go and this is what made last night so interesting.

She is now in a relationship with another friend of mine from when we were both kids. I lost touch with him when he moved to what at the time seemed like a far away land, but now I’m all grown up and allowed further than the end of the street, I realise its about 5 minutes walk away. Needless to say, when I bumped back in to him a while back, during his bands gig at one of the local boozers, I was really glad to find out that he’s still a great lad. A few nights later, and without my knowledge, they love birds recognised each other and got chatting … the rest is sloppy and as I dont have a disclaimer regarding sick and peoples keyboards/monitors I’ll refrain from telling you it all. Despite this gut wrenching sloppiness I’m really glad they have met and you can tell that this is a really serious relationship, despite it only being a few months old.

So to get back on track, whilst last night was a celebration, it also had an undertone of uncertainty, as the two love birds began to realise that any day now she was jetting off to Boston for the summer. It was nice to see two good friends caring so much about each other and what was even better for me was the fact that I knew just how deep their feelings for each other where before they did, so I know everything will be ok, even if they don’t!

Everyone had a great night and I managed to snap a few photos that where actually in focus, despite being a little bit messy myself. As usual they’re all on my Flickr Account if you want to take a peak.

Facing The Sumpter Initiation

I’ve spent this weekend in North Wales with the majority of the close family, 20 of us in total. We all stay in cottages that we rent from the locals twice a year, without fail. This is a family tradition and those who don’t attend at least one of the two weekends will be driven out of their homes by my auntie, wielding a Machete and Molotov Cocktails. It’s all very dramatic and something that must be avoided at all costs! It is also family tradition for family members to bring their ‘new’ partners along to meet everyone and as this was the first time that my girlfriend has joined me in the 9 months we’ve been together, this would be the initiation! The beauty of this initiation is that she can meet everyone, behaving how they normally do with the whole family, but there is also the added fun factor … she can’t get away for three whole days! haha

Despite her nerves we had a fantastic weekend of playing on the beach and climbing mountains, coupled with plenty of relaxing and a few cheeky drinks. I heard nothing but praise from everyone in the family, so that’s the biggest test of all passed, with flying colours! I’ve put some of the pictures I took in a set on my flickr account. Check out the one of the other-half feeling really proud of herself for climbing to the top of the mountain. So cute!

Nickelback: Live at the MEN Arena in Manchester

As the title clearly gives away, I went to watch Nickelback last night at the MEN Arena in Manchester. My girlfriend bought me the tickets as a birthday present, knowing that I really like their music, but because I don’t go to many concerts or live events I’m not ashamed to admit I was a little nervous, not least because I thought we would like out of place amonst a massive crowd of rock fans wearing all black clothes and crazy T-shirts that would ouly be out done by the mental hair styles they would have on display.

As the day went on I did get quite excited and was really surprised when I arrived to see a totally mixed group ranging from heavy rockers to average joe’s and even a load of girls who were dressed in a way that would have seemed more at home at a Maria Carey or Take That concert. What did worry me though was the amount of kids! I don’t mean 14 year olds who are starting to grow up, I mean primary school kids. Surely the parents must have known what a gang of lads, playing heavy rock music, on a stage, whilst no doubt being high on something and spurred on by thousands of fans was going to result in at least a few choice words… needless to say, they didn’t disappoint, quite a bit of swearing, but with a lot of humour to back it up. My and the girlfriend enjoyed it, but I think a few parents were blushing at the end, haha.

Overall the concert was a massive surprise to me, I knew they had musical talent, but I was blown away by how good the show was! The interaction with the crowd was excellent and really funny, the pyrotechnics and lighting/video show was outstanding and the T-Shirt cannons topped it all off nicely. I would definitely recommend going to see them if your a fan of their music.

The whole set of poorly taken photos can be found here.

Fantastic start to a weekend I’ve been looking forward to for months. We’re setting off on a weekend away in Wales with the whole family now, cant wait!

Finally, ‘the front page’ is ticked off my to-do list!

As all those working within a small company will know, everyone needs to be able to do several jobs or nothing will get done. My role began as making a basic website, catalogue and other things of this nature when I first started, all those years ago, but I was also expected to maintain the IT systems, produce all of the certificates for the services we provide, answer the phones and deal with the resulting queries. This role has since developed to include all the Health & Safety, Quality, IT Development and provide assistance to the operations and sales staff. As a result I always have a ‘to-do’ list that is so long it resembles an American’s shopping list. Slowly rising to the top of my list over the last few weeks has been the need to do re-design the front page of the website, so it wasn’t so annoying and looked a little more like a professional site. This would have been done a long time ago, but no one can decide on the marketing angle to take and I have been far too busy doing the ‘required-by-law’ jobs to dedicate any time to coding things. But at long last I have got to a point where I could make a start…

Beginning promptly at 13:43 on Monday afternoon I decided that I would start by defining the problem. What we need is an interactive front page, that is visually impacting and doesn’t require the client to scroll, but still allows them to see an overview of our key services. After searching for some inspiration it was clear that we needed an interactive menu that changed the main image as clients clicked through the options, examples of this where plentiful, but I don’t know how to code in any web technologies except (x)HTML and CSS, this was going to be difficult.

After a few hours of searching around I found an amazing tutorial by Soh Tanaka on Design M.ag called “Create an Image Rotator“. If you follow the link you’ll see a nice simple tutorial on making a great looking ‘menu’ that not only instantly changes the main image but does so with a fair bit of style and can accommodate a descriptive box so you can give a teaser before the visitor clicks on for more information.

Using this as a foundation I began to design a similar style dynamic menu, but I wanted the ‘tabs’ to sit on top of the image so that I could have multiple layers and give the site more depth. This began by me copying the articles working code on Monday afternoon, breaking it on Monday night, fixing it Tuesday morning, breaking it again shortly after and then finally getting the code how I wanted it and working correctly just a few hours ago (Tuesday night). The problem now is that I need to style the damn thing, because it looks crap at the moment!

Any suggestions and feedback in general is more than welcome. The live version can be found here: www.envogen.co.uk.

Please make sure you all check out Soh Tanaka’s personal blog over at www.sohtanaka.com, he’s been a massive help!

2009 So Far … 1st Jan to 1st May

Seeing as I’ve lost everything on the site I thought it was a good idea to make an article that covered everything that has happened so far this year, so here goes:

2009 began with Me, Lisa and her friends taking a drunken walk back from a fantastic New Years Eve party at Shaw Hill Hotel, Whittle-le-Woods Near Chorley. This seems to have set the tone for the fantastic year ahead. Because so much has happened I’m going to do a month by month break-down, Enjoy!

January

The year started with Geoff and Mygenet’s wedding, which was all planned at the last minute. Geoff being close family and us having grown up together, I knew I was going to heavily involved, what I didn’t expect was to be asked to usher 4 days before the wedding, and then with 3 days to go I was asked to step in as Best Man due to Geoff’s uncle have an arse of a boss who wouldn’t allow him to take the day off work … on a Saturday! Despite the chaos everything went really well and pictures are available on either of their Facebook accounts.

After the wedding the next two weeks, as it is every year, was filled with birthdays. One of these was a mate of mine and as his wife was out playing we organised a Pro-Evo night for the lads. Lots of Beer, Plenty of Chilli’s and a bit of gambling ensued!

At the end of the month it was Lisa’s birthday, so being the super boyfriend that I am I sent her off to Geneva to see a good friend of hers and spend 4 days getting blind drunk. Upon her return I was in the good books and was forced to endure several weeks of no nagging, drinking with the lads, playing on my xBox and getting spoilt rotten by my lady … terrible times! hehe

February

Everyone know what happens in February, and despite the fact that I hate it, I knew that Lisa was looking forward to it, so Valentines day was in need of planning. Being as how I was in the good books though, Lisa decided that she would take me out! This did feel some what emasculating, but she spared me from wearing the dress, matching shoes and hand bag, so I realised that I could let her be dominant for the day, in exchange for an all expenses paid visit to a fantastic Japanese restaurant in Liverpool and more Tiger Beer than is required to drown a … Tiger?

Next came another batch of close family birthday’s! Towards the end of the month an unusual night out was arranged with a few friends. The venue was the local town hall and the event was a ‘mystery meal’. This didn’t mean we’d get fed something random, it meant that all the staff involved in ’serving’ us where part of a larger play that taking place before us. The plot was of course a murder mystery and the acting was superb. After the police arrived the scene changed as we, as witnesses became involved in the interrogation of the cast, with the ultimate goal of guessing who the murder was. We all had a great night and its an experience I recommend everyone should try, especially if the entrance fee’s go to a good cause.

At the end of the month my car’s MOT, Tax and Service was due, so saving was required, but I did have one night out for a friends 30th. Everyone was there and it was a chance to introduce Lisa to another group of friends who I don’t see very often now we’ve finished playing football. The night was superb and was capped off nicely by the birthday boy being sick down someone’s back after pinching some shots that were meant for other people. Quality :-)

March

Early March was spent sorting my car and attempting to get back in to a routine at the gym, which I failed miserably to do. Other than that, nothing much seemed to happen.

In mid-March it was Mygenet’s birthday, so her and Geoff to decided to throw a small a party that doubled up as a house warming. Everyone had a good time filling their faces and getting to catch up on events since the wedding.

At the end of March myself and Lisa thought it would be nice for the parents to meet, seeing as they only lived a few hundred meters from each other. We had noticed that a life soul singer was on a very nice pub that wasn’t far from where we live, so we booked it. The night was fantastic, the music was great, the food was fantastic (despite a few slip up’s) and the parents got along fine. The night was duly topped off by the taxi having to pull over to let Lisa throw up all over the grass verge right in front of my parents … classy, lol.

April

April is always a crazy month in my life, but this year I decided to do something I’d been putting off for years … I booked to go to Ladies Day at Aintree Races. We both got dolled up and along with out friends had a fantastic day drinking champagne, being merry, losing our money and eating some of the best fish & chips i’ve ever come across. Cant wait till next year :-)

Next up was the usual round of birthdays that take place, including my own, at last. I got lots of nice presents from those close to me and had a good booze up with my mates at the local.

At the end of the month was something I’ve been looking forward too for months … Andy’s Stag-do in Calella, Spain! We were due to be picked up at 04:30 on Friday morning, so being the punch of alky’s that we are, we arranged to meet in the pub at 22:00 on Thursday! The land lady kept the boozer open for us until we got picked up, and so the mayhem began. We had four fantastic days enjoying a free bar, free food and funny nights out. The highlight of the weekend was the stag getting involved in a dance-off with the locals whilst wearing a beautiful red dress with black poker-dots, matching bag and a lovely elephant cock-piece! Coming a close second was Scott’s ability to fall asleep in the most stupid places and wake up covered in permanent marker! Third goes to the bar on the beach where we all chilled out with a pint of Amstel whilst listening to Bob Marley tunes, good times!

So as you can see, it’s been a busy few months. But that’s everything up to date … job done!

Take 2: Archane v5.0 Launches

Is anybody out there?

Well there is a good chance that I’m talking to myself, but here goes anyway…

Anyone who has (appempted) to visit the site in the last few weeks may have noticed that it was broken. This was because my hosting moved and I didnt realise! As a result I have lost all the past work, due to the fact I’ve never backed it up, but this isn’t a problem because most of it was crap.

This means that I now have a brand spanking new blog to fill with non-sense and clutter up with old photos and videos.

If anyone is reading this then I hope you like the site and please feel free to join in the conversations.

Thanks

Nick