March 2007 Archives

Home.

While I've settled in at Uni really well and consider it a second home, there's nothing like looking out of my window directly over the fields (compared to looking out over Tegfan and the mountains if I push my face against the glass like this and the sea if I push it against the glass the other way, like this. It's good sleeping in my own bed and being able to sit next to a real fire. It's lovely to be able to hug everyone properly!

 And eat proper food!

 And watch telly!

 It's good to be home.

Easter.

Easter is here once again and Wales is doing its best to show to us just what wonderful weather we have to come back to. It's a couple of minutes walk from one lecture to the next and we were all getting soaked. The weather was exactly the same just before we went home for Christmas!

 It's been quite an eventful semester for me, I have been working really hard in my modules to make sure I don't have the mad panic during exam leave I had in January, Dennis and Owyn and their new home, the sub-aqua club and of course my baby the kite club all doing well and providing me with plenty to keep me occupied!

 I'm really looking forward to going home tomorrow and being able to laze about in front of the telly for a bit and eat proper food and sleep in a comfy bed. It reached the stage here a week or so ago where everyones' tempers are frayed and the slightest thing can trigger a screaming hissy fit or a deluge of tears. Easter will be a good opportunity to revise a bit, relax and be happy before April's mad pre-exam rush and May, bringing our exams with it.

Hopefully I will get home happily and without any more stress.

Kiting Latest

Well...

I appear to have been kiting recently, and watching at events too :-O

A few weekends ago it was the first round of the PKA's series at Hoylake, my video can be found:

Here

And further to that, I was out on Monday afternoon with Ally and Geoff at Cockenzie near Edinburgh for some afternoon riding after my morning lecture. It turned out to be a pretty good day on Allys 7m Ion mostly, and using his new board. I've just finished yet another video, which can be found:

Here

Not only that! But I was also out doing some instructing and random riding with Ally (once again spending too much time with this long haired fool!) at Irvine, one of my favourite shots from the day was one of Ally going for a Handle-pass/Dangle-pass,

Handle Pass

Fish.


Well the tank seems to be quite happy at the moment so there isn't really much to update with.


Dennis and Owynfish2.jpg


 I thought you might like to see some pictures of my beautiful goldfish. The minnows are generally too hard to catch on cam!

 

Hairilarity!

Those who have seen me in the last 2 weeks will know... My hair is now Cosmic Blue, which is a black with a bit of blue in the right light, and I promised you all a picture, so here it is!

Black Hair

Dust off your snowboards

Oooo, well well well, I've got to say, even with all the forcasts, I didn't beleive it was going to snow, but this morning the light coming from the top of the curtains as I awoke was more than average... and no wonder, the light is bouncing off a touch of snow on the ground!

Now my only hope is it gets deeper!

BUKC.

Well we had the first of Bangor Uni Kite Club's socials this evening, just a quick one really to get some more signiatures and a chance for everyone involved in the club to ask the committee who were present any questions they had.

 There were a lot of questions asked, most of which were fielded well by the three committee members present and all of the new members seemed quite happy with the answers they received.

 So far we have 20 signitures (we need 15 to run an AU club apparently) and an e-mail list of 36. The Committee as it stands is as follows:

Ric - Chairman, Liam - Secretary, Sam (hopefully!) - Treasurer, William - Press Officer, Kev - Club Instructor, Leah - Equipment and Training Officer.

We decided tonight that because the Climbing Club has a meeting at the same time as ours (7ish on a Wednesday) we have some members who can't make it, so we've taken a vote and moved the nights we'll meet to a Thursday.

Still going well!

Moving.

It's been a week now since the new tank was set up and the minnows introduced to it. Since then I've put some more beach pebbles in and today we introduced the Terrible Two.

The first thing Dennis did was spin slowly in the current from the filter for a while, before starting to swim about and eat random things.

Owyn on the other hand was much quicker on the uptake that there were actually other fish in the tank and promptly spent the next half hour or so chasing them around (with little success, what with them being much faster and much more used to such a strong curent).

They seem to both have settled in well even though the water in the 18l is a few degrees warmer for some reason than the water in the bowl.

Hopefully I will wake up with all four fish alive and well.

Diving humour

We found this at the dive meeting a few weeks ago. Most of us decided we're going to play it before every weekly meeting.

Enjoy.

http://www.ukdivers.net/support/scuba.swf

Just dive.

On Tuesday I took my Sports Diver exam along with Darren and Giles. After much deliberation over stupidly worded questions, some heated discussions and disputing of answers, we marked our papers.

 Just thought I'd let you all know I passed it so when I can dive again I will officially be a Sports Diver!

Fish.

On Sunday Kev and I journied to Pets At Home to buy a few plants for the new tank to occupy the ever hungry Dennis and Owyn. We returned with three new fish (White Cloud Mountain Minnows!), a new plant and a fake plant for them to hide in. They're not really any bigger than fry just now so we have waited to move the terrible two over for a week or so.

This morning I awoke to a disaster. In the night, one of the minnows in its sleep slowly drifted towards the filter, wherein he got stuck in it front end first, and as a result, drowned. RIP Fishy. We'll miss you.

Prison Break

Jeez' they just keep making the plot twist and turn, Prison Break is possibly one of the best tv dramas around just now. If anyone hasn't seen it, get watching http://www.tv-links.co.uk. All of Series 1, and Series 2 up until present is online.

Oh... and my hair colour has changed... more permenantly (for now)... Await piccys!

BUKC Demo Day

Yesterday came the day of our first "event", and while it was unofficial it was well organised, safe and everyone had fun.

 We met up at Morrisons at about half past 11, in total there were 12 or so of us travelling down in 5 cars - we could have gone down in less but we were not sure as to how many were going to turn up! Jenny and the Canoe Club guys went slightly ahead of us but Rich, Liam and Kev and their passengers drove down in convoy. The boys managed to stay together despite a few boy racer moments winding each other up!

We arrived about 1pm, the wind was blowing about 10 knots and so we got the Pw out for a play while we waited for the others to find us and Rich and I went through the basics with some of the ones who were there - wind window, basic steering and some important safety considerations - and Kev started setting up the bigger toys (after a quick play) and the buggies.

We then got the BBQ's ready thanks to our top chef Liam and Kev took people out for rides in the tandem buggy. Much fun was had by all in that department! After the tandem rides we got some kites out and had people learning how to fly four line kites- the Canoe Club guys did their own thing while Kev ran some proper lessons near the dunes.

People picked it up really fast - some more than others- and the Century Soulfly's once again proved their awesomness. Jenny made a friend in my own favourite - the 2.5m - and other people used sizes between 1.8m and 4.5m. The wind tried to drop off a couple of times but it soon came back to make sure we carried on having an awesome day!


Liam at Black Rocks.

At the end of the day we all went into Porthmadog for chips(well, the 3 cars of the origincal convoy!). We then went to Tesco's for petrol, Rich went ahead and Kev and Liam stayed fairly close for the rest of the way home.

An absolutely awesome day was had by all who attended, and we hope that word of mouth will do its thang and get Bangor Uni Kite Club up and running!