There's a promotion going at work, so my Monday evening is spent updating my CV to get an application in by the deadline. Busy week this week - got leaving drinks for my friend Laura tomorrow, then have Wednesday & Thursday to get sorted for my trip to Bulgaria on Friday morning.
My mate from uni, Ally, is getting hitched so we're off to paint Sofia white, green & red - with a bit of skiing chucked in for good measure on Saturday. I've not skied since 1993; I imagine my attempts at the weekend will entail falling over on my first go at the drag lift, then spending the rest of the day waving at the others like a proud parent as I sit at the bottom of the mountain in all my clobber, sipping a beer.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Back! By popular demand...
Inspired by the fact that one of my 3 readers left a comment on the last post, combined with a nostalgic trawl through previous comments as I attempted to remove the spam that has been afflicting my little corner of the internet of late, I'm gonna get back on the virtual horse (blog) and start riding (writing) again.
I've wanted to wax semi-literately in more depth about the trip for months, and that will form the basis of my inspiration over the coming weeks. 35 days with a post devoted to each may not make for enthralling reading for anyone else, but it will give me an opportunity to record what memories remain for posterity.
It will also help get my creative juices (tears) flowing as I find it bloody difficult to write anything without decent subject matter - not for me the world of the tabloid hack. Potentially, given "changing rally-gate" that kicked off in the spring, it might also give people thinking of doing the rally a flavour of what to expect and encourage them to make the leap - it's more likely that the posts will appear on Google than via the official site, and any encouragement I can offer to someone thinking of signing up to the trip is worth a broken finger nail from typing.
So sit back, relax, and suppress the uneasy feeling that you've heard all of what is about to unfold somewhere before....
I've wanted to wax semi-literately in more depth about the trip for months, and that will form the basis of my inspiration over the coming weeks. 35 days with a post devoted to each may not make for enthralling reading for anyone else, but it will give me an opportunity to record what memories remain for posterity.
It will also help get my creative juices (tears) flowing as I find it bloody difficult to write anything without decent subject matter - not for me the world of the tabloid hack. Potentially, given "changing rally-gate" that kicked off in the spring, it might also give people thinking of doing the rally a flavour of what to expect and encourage them to make the leap - it's more likely that the posts will appear on Google than via the official site, and any encouragement I can offer to someone thinking of signing up to the trip is worth a broken finger nail from typing.
So sit back, relax, and suppress the uneasy feeling that you've heard all of what is about to unfold somewhere before....
Monday, January 17, 2011
*cough* ahem. Hello?
2010. What a year that was. A year so packed full of joy and adventure that I managed to hit the blog a grand total of 56 times. Even by my lazy, can't-be-arsed standards, that represents something of a low.
What can I say? Rally prep went into overdrive around April time, and was an all-encompassing obsession by the time June arrived. We went, we saw, we came back, but then it was straight back into work and catching up with neglected friends, and before I knew it it was January the 1st all over again!
The months following our triumphant return from 110 degrees east also saw me wading through over 1800 photos and 2 hours of video from the trip, in an attempt to weed out the worthwhile memories from the out-of-focus thumb shots. I managed to get the photos fully uploaded to Flickr around the middle of December, and you can check 'em out here.
Likewise, I cobbled together a reasonable first effort at a short film of our highlights - by which I mean 'the parts of the trip where I remembered I had a camcorder with me'. It's viewable in the post below, and I lucked out somewhat both with the music working really well, and some of the edits almost looking slick. After all - it was my first attempt, and was using Windows Movie Maker, which isn't renowned for being particularly amazing. There is a helluva lot of room for improvement though, and my latest attempt to make a rally opus is currently beached on the soundtrack options. It's bloody hard to find the right sort of music that has a bit of meaning and works well with the footage it's playing over the top of. The mutterings on the film soundtrack itself are either non-existent or mediocre, boring mumbling, hence the need to make it more of a musical endeavour. I'm plugging away though - I won't stop until I'm happy with it. It's kinda nice to get home and tinker with the footage, in the absence of a driveway and clapped out motor.
I'm going to re-post our updates from the road here for posterity, just in case something goes tits up with the rally website. I also hope to expand on the short, SMS-length posts we did whilst we were away, but that fully depends on my 33-year old memory helping me out with the finer points of our 5 week expedition (now over 6 months ago), and me having a bit more commitment to clogging up the internet version of the airwaves than was displayed last year.
What can I say? Rally prep went into overdrive around April time, and was an all-encompassing obsession by the time June arrived. We went, we saw, we came back, but then it was straight back into work and catching up with neglected friends, and before I knew it it was January the 1st all over again!
The months following our triumphant return from 110 degrees east also saw me wading through over 1800 photos and 2 hours of video from the trip, in an attempt to weed out the worthwhile memories from the out-of-focus thumb shots. I managed to get the photos fully uploaded to Flickr around the middle of December, and you can check 'em out here.
Likewise, I cobbled together a reasonable first effort at a short film of our highlights - by which I mean 'the parts of the trip where I remembered I had a camcorder with me'. It's viewable in the post below, and I lucked out somewhat both with the music working really well, and some of the edits almost looking slick. After all - it was my first attempt, and was using Windows Movie Maker, which isn't renowned for being particularly amazing. There is a helluva lot of room for improvement though, and my latest attempt to make a rally opus is currently beached on the soundtrack options. It's bloody hard to find the right sort of music that has a bit of meaning and works well with the footage it's playing over the top of. The mutterings on the film soundtrack itself are either non-existent or mediocre, boring mumbling, hence the need to make it more of a musical endeavour. I'm plugging away though - I won't stop until I'm happy with it. It's kinda nice to get home and tinker with the footage, in the absence of a driveway and clapped out motor.
I'm going to re-post our updates from the road here for posterity, just in case something goes tits up with the rally website. I also hope to expand on the short, SMS-length posts we did whilst we were away, but that fully depends on my 33-year old memory helping me out with the finer points of our 5 week expedition (now over 6 months ago), and me having a bit more commitment to clogging up the internet version of the airwaves than was displayed last year.
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