Nearly at the half year point with my ‘photo a day for a year’ project. Here is ‘page 5′ – days 145 to and including day 180.
click here to visit the set
A large chunk of activity.
This weeks been work driven stress land and a night out last night. Off to get myself on the outside of some food now.
So we built this 8 cube out of scaffolding, bolted some stage flats around the edges and made this thing. It's a Teleprojer. Insert head in the rear apperture, project image onto board in dark room with holes cut out, take photo, print it onto postcard – jobs a good un. Had some very big smiles of a bunch of people as a result 
Newby Hall (Event we've done this weekend) had a lot less people than previous years due to the snow but still great. Lovely assembled all doing their bits.
Currently chilling by the space heater inside a little big top (without the stripes) type tent. paintMonkey photo of scene to follow (he said hintingly).
This was such a lovely moment. You can say what you like about religion, we all have our own views – but Faith – now there’s a thing. I was in Otley first thing (seemed to be the only place in the Northern Hemisphere that had a stockist for some paper I needed) – The shop didn’t open for 20 minutes – right, though I, quick coffee. Installed myself in a little cafe window – with this view and watched the world go by. I watched the little old lady hobble up, regard the cross and stop for a quiet moment of prayer. The world stopped. I snapped it just after. I’m glad I didn’t snap the actual moment of prayer, but observing it moved me.
The Lost City by Henry Shukman
Racing through Liverpool airport recently (on route to Barcelona) with not much time to spare and a notion to score me a new book I spotted this gem (I say gem, because it had a very metallic cover – I’ve always been a big believer in judging a book, by it’s cover).
A wonderful story and pace to this read. The plot felt a little over contrived at times and the style often basic, which as an upside made it a very quick and easy read. As a reading experience goes, it reminded me of The Celestian Prophecy, (James Redfield) in the way that a./ a lot of it is set in the Jungle b./ The author offloads some life wisdom tips on you.
A good read though, challenging the boundaries of human survival, a scratch beneath the surface of the higher echelons of the cocaine growing industry in South America, and it’s a fantastic portrait of a country that’s all ways fascinated me – Chile. It’s climates, it’s contrasts, it’s people and it’s places.
It’s been strange having no DragonDrop. I guess that’s how normal people feel.
Now it’s back up, and (touch wood) working I can type stuff at it again. Been a fun packed week or so. Last weekend was fairly chilled, punctuated with a night at a friends house watching the cricket (Eng v NZ second test). Been working on a project for Newby Hall which I’m calling ‘The TELEPROJER’ until I or someone thinks of a better title. Basically, it’s a board with two face shaped holes cut into it. A projector is positioned 3m 36cm away, pointing an image at said board, with white disks where the face shaped holes are. Insert two people’s faces. Project an image that makes them look like they are in a scene (so far I’ve got Space, Pirates, Acid Smiley face, Laurel and Hardy to name but a few) – then take a photo of them with projected background, then print this out onto a postcard, frank it, and give it to the face owners to write it out and stick in the letter box provided.
Not happy about the ‘heavy snow’ currently forecast for Sunday. Ahh well – fingers crossed it’s not as bad as all that.
It seems that it’s back up now. I’m flat out at work and home – Newby Hall this weekend.
Site outage – You may be one of the many people who let me know that DragonDrop was down. A problems with the DNS according to my technical cousin who looks after these things.
More actual real bloggage, soon.
Important press release from Timewatch – if you care about Thornborough, or preserving the heritage of this very important site ACT NOW – details within
this press release.
This weekend involved a lot of stopping in. On Wednesday, Jaygo went in to hospital for a minor operation on a cisty type thing on his neck. This turned into quite an epic hospital visit as it was discovered that he had pneumonia poor little mite. He seems a load better already though and is on the mend.
Watched The Number 23 with Jim not so scarry Carrey on Thursday night, (whilst waiting for Jay and Eirene to get back from LGI) with my good friend the paintMonkey. Now, a few years ago before any of the mainstream hype about the number 23 broke, myself and a few others were obsessed with the number. We heard of other pockets of people, independantly obsessed with it. Everywhere I looked there it was. 23 minutes past the hour, that sort of thing. It’s an incredible number when you look into it. So back to the film – it went OOH YEA > Cool > oh > hmm > meh.
On Friday night, Eirene and I watched Run Fat Boy Run. Now I’d blogged a week or two ago at the (in my humble opinion) terrible state of Simon Pegg’s “Big Nothing” film. I needed to get over the fact that Pegg made a wrong un. Stat. This film did the trick. A really funny film. Superb characters and some surprising, often cameo star appearances. The premise and plot were, at times a bit predictable, but that didn’t seem to matter. A feel good comedy. Even if it was directed by David Schwimmer, the DragonDrop two thumbs fresh non winner.
Saturday, Chillaxing, punctuated with a ten piece breakfast ensemble (pictured above) – NB I’d forgotten to place bacon, prior to snapping said photo. Of the Evening, we went round for a play at friends on Saturday night. They have PS3 – first try – it’s ace. Cant remember any of the games we played but there was this one where you are a microscopic creature underwater.. it was good anyway.
Sunday – proper, unadulterated chillaxing.
So last night I had a friend/colleague over from work – we (Eirene, he and I) went out for eats at the Harrogate’s new sushi restaurant – Akira on Kings Road. Very pleasantly surprised. It’s got the YoSushi! style conveyor belt where the chef stands behind, creating little masterpieces of Japanese cuisine, who then pops them on colour coded plates on the belt. (each colour equals a different price). I personally don’t know much about sushi, but the friendly staff were happy to explain what things were. We had a bunch of stuff from the belt – all great, and a couple of hot things from the menu. There was a guy who came in with his partner who was chatting to chef – who obviously knew his way round sushi chat. He was asking for specialities which the chef created there and then – fascinating to watch. Chef knows what he’s doing, overheard some of his training resume that he reeled off to said sushi chatterer. I’d totally recommend it; reasonably priced, great instant food with a range of premium Asian beers. Someone asked me to put phone numbers of restaurants I mention (as Harrogate + restaurant name seems to place DragonDrop quite high in google) so here it is : Akira Sushi, Harrogate : 01423 529888.
After that we had time to watch the second set of an Aussy chap called Darrin, at the Blues Bar. No worries music. A lovely Wednesday evening.
Fairly quiet weekend. Was solo dad for most of Saturday. I quite like being solo dad even though it’s quite hard work (Hat’s off to Eirene who does it loads). Sophie is a little poppet when I’m solo dad (she often acts scared of the hairy one when Eirene is around)
Joined one of those unlimited DVD deals through Blockbusters. For a reasonable set price per month, you have 3 DVD’s in hand, when you’ve watched one, you post it back in the pre paid envelope and they send you more DVD’s from you list that you build online. So far it’s been superb (apart from the fact they sent me the wrong DVD : 28 weeks later instead of 28 days later) So on Saturday night, I had some friends round and we watched 28 weeks later. Quite good – Not as good as the 28 days later film, according to people there who’d seen both. Never the less, I quite liked it.
Sunday we went up to the shed. Took some photos which you can see by clicking these words. We were discussing the 2008 Newby Hall Easter Funday which I’ve been involved with the organisation of for the past few years. It’s got some great new stuff happening this year. More news on this to follow.
Watched a film Monday – The Wedding Crashers. Bit of an American Four Weddings and a Funeral. Quite amusing, but of a cheese fest though.
Last night, went round to a friends house to watch the first bit of the cricket. Good first day of the New Zealand first test for England.
Today at work has been quite exciting. We’ve had delivery of a new application for building websites that we’ve been waiting for / planning for nearly a year.
