Long Time! No Post?/Happy Birthday Timmy!

So, long time, no post, eh?

Yeah, I’ve been out of it for a while. What I didn’t tell you guys (or I don’t think I did) was that I went on holiday this month. Granted it was only for a week, but at least it gives me an excuse for no posts or new updates that week, right? Yeah, I thought so too. But, apart from that, I am the guilty one. That, and so is my friend Kym for keeping me away from updating you guys with her amazing womanly charm and beautiful face *cough*. Fortunately you didn’t miss out on much though. My social life has been quite stagnant as of late, and my sleeping patterns have been…less than adequate these past few weeks, which has also contributed to my lack of posts for you guys. I am back on track though, so tomorrow I can give you another one of my ‘Photo Of The Day’ posts. Trust me, there are so many I would like to put up it’s overwhelming.

If you’d like to view some of the photos from my holiday (some of which came out better than expected) then just go to my Flickr here. Oh, that’s another thing too! I now have a Flickr Pro account, and you all know what that means! That’s right! 100% more statistical goodness, amongst other goodies!

Ah, and last but not least! Today is Kym’s birthday! No, dear readers, I didn’t forget, I’m on Skype to her at this very moment! I just thought I’d bring attention to her, since she has been a little bit of a moaner today, so maybe this, (and your heartfelt birthday greetings), will cheer her up a bit.

Happy Birthday Timmy!

亞歷克斯的！

Birmingham? Failure!

Yeah, the title just about sums this whole thing up, to be honest.

You see, since there was a little church concert going on in Handsworth, the youth decided to go up for it, and I managed to get along too. Now, it started at 19:00 hours sharp, which is what we were aiming to get there for, but due to some…difficulties…we didn’t get there as early as we had hoped.

It was 18:25 when we were meant to catch the bus, and so we did. The problem was that we were missing a fellow traveller who didn’t knwo the way by themselves, so we had to get off, and wait for them to meet us at another bus stop. The next bus was at 18:45, which we did manage to catch with everyone this time, and as we boarded the 126, it felt as we were finally making progress. Don’t think we were deluded or anything though, we knew we were going to be late, but just not as late as we got there for. The ride on the 126 lasted for 1 hour and 45 minutes, bringing us to 19:30 when we finally got off, only to find that this was not our final destination.

The walk to the next bus stop for the 33 or 51 (whichever came first), and waiting time was around 15 minutes long, taking our total time to 19:45, which none of us were really impressed with. Did I mention there were around twelve of us? Yeah, there were. Anyway, moving on, we caught the 33, which took us to the ‘One-Stop’ shopping center about 20 minutes later, and walked the rest of the way to Handsworth church for about 10 minutes for around 18:15. It had to have been the most failed trip I had been on yet.

Worse still, by the time we’d got to the concert, we only managed to listen to three songs before they closed! Now we were regretting coming in the first place, but the silver lining to the cloud was that there was a social after, which we were more than happy to stay for.

As we were getting ready to leave, however, we found that some of the group had dipped off and left a while ago, leaving around seven of us to make our way back. This was all at around 22:15, because the last bus to Walsall left at 22:29. So we part ran, part walked our way to the stop, and had a few close encounters with cars as we decided which bus to go on. The 51 across the road, or the one to Walsall? Eventually as we studied the time difference and the time our buses from Wolverhampton left, we settled on the bus to Walsall.

Now, a word of warning: Never go on the bus so late at night. Never. There are scary people out there.

As you can probably guess, we met some of those scary people. Well, more like a bus full of them, because everyone on the top floor apart from us seven were either drunk, or stoned. It was not the prettiest sight in the world, but definitely the most funny once you’d learned to laugh…and not cry. It did go a tad over toe top though with some girls in the back, and we were…slightly disappointed to find that they were joining us on our next bus. Once we arrived in Wolverhampton, we all went our separate ways. Some got lifts, and some caught the bus.

It was most definitely the most failed trip ever, but also the most interesting, too.

亞歷克斯的！

P.S I will be back later on with a few pictures and articles, but this is all I had time for this morning.

Parks, Knights, and Slackers! Argh!

So yeah, it’s been a while. Not as long as my other breaks, but hey, it was a break nonetheless. And just when I’d promised to pick back up as well. Shameful. I guess it takes a lot of will and hard effort to keep these sort of things going, eh?

Anyway, today I thought I might as well update you guys on what’s been going on.

My head’s been a absolute trash can, it really has. My thoughts have been scattered all over the place, my concentration hasn’t lasted for one minute, and I have no idea why. It’s getting better now though, I’m happy to say, so maybe I’ll be back into my normal routine by tomorrow.

I can only hope.

This week however, has (event-wise) been very…well…uneventful. My trip to West Park, however, was the best part of the week. I donned my blue and white check shirt, blue jeans, black trainers, and managed to get up there in the scorching weather. Not my best plan, but once I start…I don’t want to look like a fool and turn back. Unless in private. So, I got down there and went snap happy! It was a refreshing experience, seeing as I hadn’t had the opportunity to do such a thing for quite a while, so I was happy. Eventually it got too much though. I mean, I’m used to 10 degrees or less…not 30 and rising. SO of course I bailed out and went home.

When I got there, I decided to finish off editing my friend Laura’s photos from her ‘Fruit Salad’ photoshoot which she did with Sadia promoting her fasion design. It was a challenge, going for the same overall look, but making sure the tone and white balance presented the greatest clarity, I’ll tell you that now. But, of course, I did it. I am Alex, the Lightroom veteran, after all.

And that brings me to today. This morning I trolled through Sadia’s photos from her trip to France and made my changes on Lightroom, before sending them back, and got on with the day. Skip ahead a few hours, and you’d find me upgrading from Lightroom 3 to…you guessed it! 4! Not only that, but I made the leap from Photoshop and Illustrator CS5.5 to…6! It was worth it, I’ll have you know, so all you graphic designers and photographers out there better scrape your pennies together! It was the most excited I’d felt all day.

Until George came online, that is. Of course, we played Spiral Knights. Of course, I died like 10 times. Of course, George rubbed my face in it. And of course, I had to leave early, by demand of my mother. It’s pretty much the routine we have, so I won’t go into much detail, suffice to say that George is was more powered up than me…which leads me to believe he’s been playing some extortionate hours…

Anyway, I’m off for now, seeing as it’s like 10:59pm here. I would upload some photos from West Park, too, but my internet has ben slow as of late (don’t worry, BT Infinity comes 12th June). To look at them, just look in the sidebar and check my Flickr!

Chao!

Newsspot – A Father’s Example Guides Tebow

Hello there! You know, this article caught my eye today. Now I dont’ have much deep to say about it, but it always warms my heart when I hear stories like this. The bond between the west and places like this is pretty weak at its best, so when I see things like this, it’s an instant improvement to my mood, seeing how people actually go out of their way, take time to visit these children, and treat them like brothers and sisters. The be honest I’d never heard of Tim before, but to me he seems like a good, decent guy…but I’ll leave you to be the judge of that, seeing as I only know him from this article.

A Father’s Example Guides Tebow

 

Children at an orphanage founded in the Philippines by Bob Tebow.

By SETH MYDANS

Published: May 15, 2012

LAMSUGOD, the Philippines — The last time Tim Tebow visited his father’s orphanage here in the remote hills of Mindanao island, he stood at the edge of a grassy yard and told the children to make a loop with their arms. Then, to their amazement, he threw a football right through them.

“He’s really good at throwing!” said the Rev. Roberto P. Gauran, 67, who runs the orphanage with his wife, Raymunda, 65. “At 30 meters he could hit dead center, or even farther.”

That was three years ago, before Tebow’s professional stardom cut down on his time for travel to the Philippines. But the boys and girls here still toss around a football he left behind for them — among the very few youngsters in the country who know how.

“Kuya Timmy taught us how to throw it,” said Jessa Berbo, 16, using a local term for big brother. The word here at the orphanage is that Tebow himself singled her out as the child with the best arm.

Tebow’s father, Bob, founded the orphanage in 1992 as part of his missionary work in the Philippines with the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association, headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla. He visits several times a year, sometimes bringing with him a group of American volunteers to preach in distant towns and villages.

On a recent visit, Bob Tebow showed the children a video of his son on the field and the orphans watched with a mixture of excitement and puzzlement, said Roberto Gauran Jr., 28, the oldest of the pastor’s seven children, who also works here.

“The children here know he is famous, but we don’t play football in the Philippines and sometimes we don’t know what is going on,” he said. “We watch Fox News sometimes, so we know what is happening in the States with Tim and we know that people are mocking him for his faith.”

But most Filipinos, obsessed with basketball rather than football, have not heard of Tim Tebow, or of his father’s foundation. His name rang a bell with one academic here who said, “Oh, is he the one who puts biblical verses under his eyes?”

 

As always, this is only a long excerpt from the real thing. To carry on reading, go over here: NY Times – A Father’s Example Guides Tebow

Chinese Quarters, Barry Steakfries, and Procrastination

Hello there!

Yeah, it’s been a little bit of a while since I’ve done a post like this. ARME threw me off my routine that I’d gotten into, but that’s no excuse for not getting back into it sooner than I have.

Anyway, this past week and a bit has been fairly uneventful, but the events that have been going on have been pretty exciting…for me.

The first was that for the past few weeks, I’ve been eyeing Halfbrick‘s app entitled ‘Age Of Zombies: Anniversary’ on the App Store. I got it. It features their very own mascot ‘Barry Steakfries’ in a Zombie obliterating fast-paced game that I just can’t seem to put down. It’s become such a hobby that I’ve found myself climbing the Game Center leader-boards in the survival levels at a relatively slow, but assuring, rate. It’s well worth the price, and retina enabled, too. I suggest you buy it…like, now.

Second is that I’ve, as stated in my earlier post, become quite attached and interested in ‘bokeh’. So much so that I spent quite a few hours trolling though, favouriting, and downloading photos from Flickr to a special ‘Bokeh‘ folder that I use simply as wallpapers for my devices. So far the count is 254, but I hope to expand on it soon. I may need a bigger hard drive at this rate, come to think of it.

Lastly, I managed to get over to Birmingham yesterday, and not just any part of Birmingham. The Chinese Quarter part of Birmingham! It’s most easily my favorite part of the city, not that I’m exactly sure why. Maybe it’s the buildings, the writing that I can’t make sense of…or just the all over oriental feeling of it, I really don’t know. Of course there’s always that reminder that you’re in the UK. You know, the blatant prescience of native English people, the view of the 80′s flats in the distance, and the lack of blaring lights that the dense cities like Tokyo sport. It was more of a taster I guess, but it was enough to make my day. I took quite a few photos, too. Some of which will be at the end of this post. If you want all of them , then just check out my Flickr photo stream. The link should be in the sidebar.

Anyway, I’m off. Chores to do, a day to finish, Spiral Knights to play. You know the drill. Oh, by the way, just forgot to mention earlier, I’ll be away from Friday 5PM till Monday…sometime. No, I won’t tell y’all where I’m off to right now, I think I’ll leave you hanging on that one till I get back.

Chao!

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