My Thoughts On: Natural Disasters, Taxes, and a New User Interfaces!

You know, my heart goes out to the victims of the recent natural disaster in Oklahoma, America. It really does. I’ve never been in a disaster myself (and hope not to be), but it must be hard, not only losing part of your lives in material substance, but also losing family members and loved ones in the same circumstance, with nothing and no-one to blame but the weather.

This section of the post, however, is more to do with how we see natural disaster and their effects these days. In my mind, we’ve become ‘desensitized’ by the frequent disasters, natural and man-made, that we’re bombarded with every day. I mean, with all the disasters and death that we see on TV, in Newspapers, and all around us, it’s not hard to see why we are less inclined to feel emotion at the sight of another disaster when we’re constantly surrounded by them all the time. I just hope that we can find it in ourselves to be heartfelt in our condolences and feel genuine sympathy when something goes wrong with someone, as we would like people feel if it was us in that situation.

For the second part of my post, in all seriousness, why can’t these companies be truthful and pay taxes where taxes are due? We complain that the economy is collapsing, and that our countries are in debt, but when you think about it, would all this have happened if these companies had been truthful with their earnings and paid that they owe the state, and stopped avoiding the inevitable? Now, I’m no expert in finance and stock, and I’ll happily admit that. I just think that, even though we may not be totally out of debt if they had have been truthful, perhaps we wouldn’t be in so much. Opinions on this recent Google UK crisis, and the fact that the NHS and all Schools could be funded by what it owes us anyone?

Thirdly, and probably the most insignificant of all three (though I find it exciting nonetheless), has anyone discovered Flickr’s new layout? I personally love it, though it seems that these days the ‘header’ or ‘banner’ that I first saw on Facebook has become all its age as of late. Nearly all social networking sites I use have one now. I know it’s used to ‘express yourself’ and all that, but don’t you think it’s become a bit global? Isn’t there another alternative?

Well, that’s all I can churn out of my head for today.

I have a date with destiny (which, in my speech, is translated as finishing off collecting all the useless and unimportant bits of junk in Tomb Raider)!

Until next time!

Overwhelmed – Living On The Edge

Living On The Edge a photo by Stairhopper on Flickr.

You know those photos where you think ‘I could’ve done better’ or ‘I don’t really like it, but I’ll share it anyway’? This was one of those photos.

Thing is, the response to this has literally blown be away. I’m used to seeing maybe 7 views on my photos and getting excited. This photo has topped 318 so far, and I keep getting more visitors. It may not seem like a lot to some, but to me this is spectacular!

A big thank you go to all who take the time to view it!

亞歷克斯的！

The End Of 2012 – うたかたの空 / I Remember Sky

うたかたの空 / I Remember Sky a photo by memories of time on Flickr.

Originally, I was just going to let 2012 slide by, but I felt the need to say something.

2012 has been a pretty rough year. Not just for me, but for all of us. Jobs have been lost, relatives deceased, friendships destroyed, bridges burned, and a whole lot of other things in-between.

2013 isn’t looking much better either, from this angle, but only time can tell.

Remember though, that this past year, and especially the year to come, are what you make of it. You can choose to think of 2012 and instantly bring up the negatives, or think fondly of the positives, and remember the moments.

The same goes for 2013, but on a daily basis. Most of 2012 may have seemed miserable or dull, simply because we focused a little too much on the negatives of our situations and the circumstances going on around us.

This year, let’s try and make 2013 different, and daily think of what was good, rather than what was bad.

Who knows, maybe, when we enter 2014, we’ll be feeling a lot more optimistic!

Before I go, I ought to mention who took the beautiful photo above. Their name is Kiyoshi Noguchi (memories of time), and with the end of the year drawing closer by the hour, this photo seems to take on a much more solemn meaning, yet it still retains the beauty and the brilliant composition.

Now, I’m not going to end by saying ‘Have a Happy New Year’, like we do on a day-to-day basis after the 25th. No, that phrase seems to get older and older every year, so, this time, I think I’ll go with something a little more out of the ordinary.

This is Alex, hoping that all those who are reading will remember this year with fondness, and enter the new one with a renewed sense of optimism that things can indeed get better.

See you in 2013.

The Most Exciting Week Of May

Ah, I was supposed to update you guys on Monday…or at least somewhere around that time, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, eh?

Well, just to ease your minds on where I have been, I’ve been at Prayer Warriors 2012 in Alton. Alton Castle, to be precise.

It was a real eye opener in many fields, and a great experience. The plenary sessions were the most informative, and the deepest parts of the weekend. I managed to get down quite a few notes and recordings, too. Prayer Warriors 2012 – Notes. It’s had to explain it all in words, so I’ll just let the notes here and pictures at the end of this post explain it all If you want to see all of the pictures, head over to Flickr or add me on Facebook!

The rest of my week has been fairly standard though, apart from the bus ride back home today, and the iMovie trailer that I managed to develop, that is.

The trailer was to be developed for next week’s AY session, in which we would have a panel of ‘expert’ challenging our seven core beliefs on which we grounded our faith. It’s going to be a big thing, so I was asked to put together a promotion trailer…not that I’d had much experience in that area, of course. Fortunately, the new iMovie for iPhone update came along with the iMovie ’11 feature: Trailers! It was just a matter of choosing the theme, recording the clips, adding in some pan and zoom photos, and making sure the battery didn’t die during recording. It took from around 5 till 8 to complete to a standard that I was mildly ok with before we showed it to all those who were there at the time, and to my surprise…it was a big success! Now, I haven’t quite got permission to upload it yet, but hopefully by Tuesday everything will be sorted for the final public export.

Now then, on to today. You see, I ended up going to Karen’s house to help cut her front lawn grass with her son after pathfinders, and that went all well. Especially with us pretending to be hard-core westerners from back in the 1700′s. Especially.

Anyway, it was soon coming 5:00 by the time we’d finished, so I decided to head on home and catch the bus. That was all good, but it was the route and time the bus took to get home that got to me. You see, the ride home to my house usually takes 15 minutes maximum, not 1:30 hours. So when I saw that I was going away from my house, I was a little bit worried, needless to say. Turns out though that it was the ‘normal’ route now…not that I necessarily agreed with the driver, but I went along with it, and found myself back at the bus station an hour and fifteen minutes later. Now that was annoying. I did, however, gain hope when the bus driver seemed to finally find his bearings and go towards where the sign on the bus said: Low Hill. It was an agonizing 15 minutes before I finally arrived home at 6:30, exactly an hour and a half after leaving my starting point.

I was home at last.

And that’s where I pick up my life story now! I decided to finally do a post before I got through the door, and now I’m doing it, I feel much better. I’m back on my schedule now, so things should roll a lot smoother, but until then…

亞歷克斯的！

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The Evening Post – Issue 17

Good evening! Today has been quite interesting, in my opinion, but before I begin, I think I owe you an apology. I’ve been silent these past couple of days, and as much as I know it’s good to have a break, I can’t help but feel I’ve let you all down…somehow. I’ve been busy you see, with work, college course requirements and such, and generally preparing myself for the next stage of life. Anyway, as I said before, today’s been interesting (in a good way). This afternoon I finally got around to spending some quality time with Rubie in we both made some origami pieces and did some arts and crafts, since she loves those kinds of things. We made around six or seven ‘ninja discs’, three hearts, and two pianos. Or, in my case, a bench (since I didn’t color the keys in). I’ll put some pictures below for viewing. Other than that, my day’s been the norm. Not that I can complain really, since some people have too much going on in their life, and would give anything to have a quiet day, so I’m quite content with my life as it is. This week, however, has been full ow surprises. For starters, I finally got stable contact with my good friend Kerith (Teddy Kare), who I hadn’t made contact with since last year. It was a pleasant surprise when she added me on Skype one day, and it led to me eventually calling her since when she called me on Skype, the WiFi betrayed me. The second good thing that’s happened this week is that Jetpack Joyride (featuring the legendary Barry Steakfries) finally got updated! HELL YEAH! I finally got back to my Level 45 ‘Barry’ badge with no hiccups or restores at all! If that’s not proof, then I don’t know what is! So yeah, my weeks been alright. The weather’s been freezing as usual (-11 minimum), so I’ve been housebound apart from the odd ‘mandatory’ trip out.

I’ll be getting back into my regular posts again, but they’ll be in the evening as I mentioned before. It’s 10:30 over here now, so I’m gonna head off into my bed for some well earned rest. Catch you in the morning!

亞歷克斯出！

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