Part 1: Complete

So my photography course is now over and I am left looking forward to the intermediate one that I have signed up for in April next year.  I am starting to get the hang of some of the techniques and I have posted some more of the images up on Blip

Trying to pu everything I have learnt into practice is taking a while but I am please that some of the shots seem to be coming out well - fingers crossed I will get more of a hang of it before April

If you are interested in photography courses in Glasgow then I can recommend the ones at the Met

Made it through session 2

Well yesterday saw me returning to the gym for session number 2 and it was a tremendous workout.  Ricky varied the routine a bit from last week - so there was no chance in me getting bored and it felt like we pushed it a wee bit further in terms of my conditioning.

In addition to grappling, kettle bells and stand up drills Ricky added in another bag drill and, what I think may well be the world’s hardest ab routine.  I know that ab work outs are supposed to hurt but I have never had one where after the first minute I was struggling to move myself off the floor and complete each set of exercises - and this morning - boy do I know that I worked my abs.

It’s all good though as today I can still move and have only the odd ache or pain, which is so much better than I hoped for at the start of this venture.  I have booked in for another 4 sessions so long may my progress continue

Blip-tastic - Communicating with your end customer

I like Twitter.  I admit initially I figured that micro blogging was just a way to let you feel like you were sharing your vital thoughts and opinions  - make you feel like you had a connection with people when really in all honesty they diid not care.  Never the less I decided that I would give it a go (see my posts from early last year in May) because, well to be fair I did not have a good reason but I thought I would try it anyway.

So I have used the site for a while, I have the app on my phone as well as accessing it from my laptop, I comment fairy regularly on a variety of things and follow a few folks. Any way now that I am on Blipfoto I figured I would post a link here and on twitter about the fact to see if I could generate some additional hits.  Anyway the next day back in twitter-land I notice that I hvae a message and it is from Blipfoto telling me about how they can support the posting of links as standard as soon as you upload an iimage.

Now for some folks that would be a bit too big brother, but I actually really liked it.  Despite spending my day working with software in one respect or another I had not really taken the time to look over all the ins and outs of the app.  In fact I did not feel the urge to poke to deeply largely due to the fact that the initial (key) functions had been so easy to use.

On top of contacting me they included a direct link to the page that allowed me to make the changes for in about 2 minutes and I felt like I was valued.

At the end of the day I know that this generated the blip site more traffic and possibly more users, but as someone who already used the site it still made me feel like I was a valued customer, and thats a great feeling so well done Blip team

Continuity

There have been a number of shows that have had spin off products, from action figures through to graphic novels and Castle is no exception.

Through out season 1 and 2 Rick Castle is working on a book Heat Wave based on his experiences on working with NYC Murder Detective Kate Beckett.  Well the book now really exists and you too can purchase it from Amazon.  Any how though out the show they make reference to a number of things about the book, including it's contents and the fact that there is a "sex scene on page 105".   

It's taken me a while but I eventually got around to purchasing said book - I am a sucker for things like that at the best of times, and I figured that it would be somewhat different from the one that you see in the series.  Low and behold today the book turns up and, to my great surpruse, other than the fact that it does not look as thick, there in my hand is a replica of the book.  Colour me impressed.  I figured that would be it in terms of how aligned to the show the book would be, but enquirning minds neaded to know, so I flicked to P105 and guess what - they were right- it is indeed there.  Now that is continuity (and the fan girl in me thinks it is cool)

And my favourite moment thus far in to season 2?

It has to be the start of Vampire Weekend - for sure it is a fan girl moment but you know what - it still Rocks

Check it out here

Woot: I survived !!

Well for those of you that have seen my twitter or facebook postings you will know that I have started back at the gym. In this case it is not a gym membership, makeup wareing non sweating gym, but an honest to god come here and train gym

Battlefiled Gym - Gracie  Baha Glasgow has moved into the centre of town from the West End which means that I am able to get along at lunch time once a week and I had my first session on Monday.

i said that I wanted to improve my core fitness levels, because if I am honest they are currently woeful and I really need to address this.  This may well have been a mistake as improving my fitness is definitely something Ricky can do and if he started as he means to go on then it will not take all that long as he ccertainly gave me a good workout.

As well as starting on the kettle bell routine I got my first exposure to grappling and it was hard work but kind of fun.  I left the gym feeling really energised and looking forward to next weeks session and hopefully I will still be as enthusiastic after session 2.