Jimmy's Blog-o-Sense

Well, its been a while since I last threw something on this blog, and I've been busy, and abroad, and I don't mean back packing around Europe, though tat might be fun to do one day...

Anyway, I've been working with Christ for all Nations in Nigeria, on a crusade in a township called Numan (somewhere in the north east of the country), and it was a great, life changing time.

I travelled out on the 14th Feb (yes, valentines day, but I did leave a card and some choccies for Michelle) from Manchester Airport with one of the other crew who I already knew, and met the rest of the guys at Amsterdam airport, where we promptly went for a good Irish fry-up before heading out for the long haul to Lagos.

After arriving in Nigeria, and having to quickly get used to the 30C heat of the late evening we made our way to the Sheraton hotel for the first night before getting an internal 'Bus' flight to the town of Yola (by bus, I mean it takes off, flies somewhere, people get off, people get on, you fly again).

After arriving in Yola, we collected our bags, and met our drivers for the week (due to security concerns out there, we have our own drivers, just to be on the safe side, and they're used to the driving method out there), and headed off to the hotel, which was surprisingly good, it had plenty of rooms, aircon, and power (most of the time). After dropping our clothes off, we travelled to the crusade site, and started work building the climbing towers, and getting the kitchen in order.

Once the towers were up, we flew the PA the next day, and then the following that, went to setup the Fire Conference site (on a smaller site, its like a leaders conference with more targeted teaching).

Wednesday evening was the first crusade event, and there were around 85-90 thousand people there, and I ran the front of house system for the worship, which is probably the most people I'd engineered for at that point! (This grew to 200,000 people on the remaining nights).

The following morning, myself and Alan (one of the other crew) awoke early and went to run the fire conference. Given that it got to about 55C during the day, the fire conference ran at dawn so that the crowd weren't sat out in the baking sun for too long. So, prepping the stage started in the dark, and as the sun rose, the band got up and played, its certainly different to see the sun rise over people worshipping the Lord (especially different as you then see the sun set over a larger crowd also worshipping in the evening).

Sunday didn't have the fire conference in the morning, so I got a lie in, which was certainly appreciated, as at the end of the crusade meeting that evening, we re-rigged the stage, took the PA down, and then disassembled the towers.

Monday was an early start, with us setting off from the hotel at 6am to go join a convoy to get back to the airport for another bus-flight back to Lagos. Arriving back in Lagos, we returned to the Sheraton hotel to relax for a few hours before the inevitable flight back to Amsterdam. We do however get use of the pool there, which is lovely, and slightly odd, to be swimming & sun bathing in Feburary, when your mind is telling you it should be -2C and snowing still

Anyway, thats all the travelling, and whatnot. There are photos here: Photos from Numan.

Oh, and I'm off out again in March (20th to 30th), Visa permitting!

In an effort to save some money in the long run, over this year, I've decided that I can do without the adsl connection I have at home, and thus will be shifting over to a cable connection. The phone line + broadband is a little cheaper from VirginMedia, but it does mean I won't have a static IP, though my downloads will be a fair bit faster, so, I've got me a virtual server from Memset, its fairly cheap, and is enough for me to host my site / email / etc.

So, if you see some broken things over the next week or so, its my fault (probably), and should be fixed, hopefully by the time I leave for Africa....

Oh, I didn't mention did I? I'm off to Africa for 10days on the 17th Jan. I'm working with CfaN, doing some technical stuff for a couple of their huge events. Its certain to be an eye opener, and I'm quite looking forward to it

Anywho, toodle pip, I've more stuff to break / fix

Hmm, its been a while since I posted anything, but we're all still here.

So, whats been happening? Er, last post was, er, August? Blimey... So, lots has happened, lets see:

- I've been getting on with being a freelance sound / lighting / anything person, picked up some work with Wigwam, both in the warehouse and out doing installs and some small gigs. Through that, picked up a few good contacts for other work, which is starting to take off,
- With a bunch of guys at church, we've started a training / solutions company, using what we've learnt to train / equip other churches and companies, you can see that here: Production Solutions Website,
- Michelle has been working hard at her job in Mytholmroyd, and is enjoying that,
- Lara is in daycare 3 days a week, and with my parents 1 day a week. We still have daddy-daughter time on a Wednesday though, it gives Lara a break from the hard work that is daycare, and gives us some good time together,
- Michelle enjoyed her 40th birthday with a surprise party - and, to top it off, it was a surprise party with a bbq, in December...

Er, I'm sure there are other things, but I'm being subjected to 'Theres something about Mary', wtf...

So, er, yeah, wow, this is uncomfortable... So, yeah, its been a while. I'm still here...

Okay, so, I've been busy. Mid July Jimbo and I went on an IPAF course to enable us both to use scissor lifts & cherry pickers while doing out freelance stuff, which was very useful, as we needed that for New Wine

At the end of July I was working at New Wine (North/East) at Newark Showground, had a good time there, there are a load of photos / comments about the week on twitter (http://twitter.com/jimmygulp), I'll try and update the gallery with those (and finish off Photo a Day, I have them, just not uploaded...).

Following on from New Wine, I was straight into setting up and running RockNations 09 at church. It was an impressive rig, and an excellent week. Michelle & Lara escaped the mayhem and took a trip to see Koreen in Leicester and from there have a day trip to London to see the Queen & also see Gilly.

This last couple of weeks I've been filling in at Wigwam's sales warehouse, as everyone else is either on holiday, or working at the various gigs around the place. Mick also wanted me to look at the barcode system they've got in place which should be tracking stock in / out as and when it comes / goes, but its not been working that successfully, especially with a certain manufacturers speakers / amps / accessories. So I've figured out what the problem is, and have let Mick know, and he's going to take it from there.

Well, another month gone by... Not alot to report really. Lara and I are enjoying spending time together now I'm a stay-at-home-Dad

I am getting odd jobs done around the house, and the garden is still getting some attention (its still not finished, and its been over a year...).

I've also had some complaints from Michelle that she's not had a blog like outlet for her rants, other than Facebook, so I've added her on here, so she might be able to provide more updates than I have been Look out for her posts and comment!

So, after a good long time of no posts (its probably been a month, which is about normal for me). A few things have happened.

- I'm no longer working in York (or for that company either), which means my commute is now about 0 miles (well, bed -> kitchen is a few yards).
- Michelle is going back to work, meaning I'll be a stay-at-home Dad, which I'm looking forward to. Lots of time to spend with Lara
- While Michelle is at work, I'm going to get myself going as a freelance sound / lighting / rigger / etc person. It should provide a good change from what I was doing.
- I've bought a MacBook (the white one, and yes, hell has indeed frozen over). I had an apple gift card, and didn't want to just buy an iPod touch / iPhone, etc, and as I'm going freelance, being able to get mail / etc when out and about would be easiest on a laptop of some description, and this seemed like a reasonable choice

Right, thats enough for now, this blogging lark is hard work...

Laters

So, I was enjoying the layout of this new blog-machine so much, I've made it the homepage, and had a general tidy up.

I've also imported a few of the last entries in the old blog. I'm just poking around the DB schema to see if it'll be easy to import the even older stuff in

So, lemme know what you think.

Jimmy

BTW - Some people (Dad) have pointed out that the Capatcha images aren't loading, I'm looking into it The appear to load for me, but they take a few moments to appear...

Playing around with a new blog engine I was getting far too much spam on the old one, and this one looks nice, and has spam evasion and disabling stuff.

In any case, not blogged in a while, and this is my monthly update I'll see about importing the old blog into here so I can keep my old entries

Jimmy

I know, its been over a month since I last blogged. I blame work for keeping me busy

So, its almost Christmas, meaning some time off work, and me either doing not alot, or being pestered to do jobs around the house I suspect I'll end up doing jobs

Lara is getting bigger, and there are a few photos of her on the gallery, most under Project365. She's started baby-led-weaning (about 2 months ago...), where we give her some of what we're eating (which means we're also eating more veg), and she can either play with it, eat it, or just look at it. She's taken to eating any and every food item we've placed near her, and enjoying it, and demanding more and more and more She'll quite happily eat a large bowl of porridge in a morning (with chopped up dried fruit), and then cry when its all gone.

We also have another member of the family. A cat called Boris (I say cat, I mean kitten). Michelle thought she heard mice (mouse) in the house again, and wasn't happy leaving me in the living room (where it had been spotted) with a lighter and a can of something flammable (Halfords Fabric Protector is good for this), so we went to the RSPCA and adopted a kitten. Again, photos are in the gallery, and I'll make an effort to put the rest of the photos from the year up over the Christmas period

Right, best get on with some work, ta ta.

Gallery Comments: Now with added Capatcha goodness (numbers in a box, re-type whats there, you know the drill)

Project Garden: Almost complete (!)... Well, I have the retaining walls built now, the one on the right (between our garden and the neighbours) was built a couple of weeks ago, and is now supporting a good pile of soil, and a few plants. The other wall, behind the shed was built yesterday, so I'm waiting for the cement to set properly before piling the soil up behind that and getting everything else planted

All I need to do then is work out how I'm going to cover the mud thats left... paving stones? gravel of some description? Don't particularly want grass... (that involves a mower...)

Work? Well, I'm not going to comment as I'll end up ranting and just getting worked up. It'll sort itself out sooner or later (hopefully sooner)...

Looks like something caused a couple of things to reboot t'other day, and I wasn't able to get Michelle to fix it So, a day missing there... at least it stopped the flippin comment spammers from attacking my gallery so much

Speaking of comment spammers, please get lost I've stuck a simple capacha thing on the comments now, so it should mean I have less crap-removal to do

Anywho, back to doing stuff and nonsense

I've found the magic words to utter to the gallery so that everyone can add comments to the project365 photos, so, if you have something to say, feel free

Jimmy