Month: June 2006

Doughnut Day

Doughnut Day

Today is the last Friday of the month, so that means Doughnut Day! Every Doughnut Day, all of the company gets together in the buildings attriums for free doughnuts & coffee. The idea is simple. It’s to get people together and talking, so you can mingle and met people who you might not otherwise talk to. Plus you get free cakes & coffee!

On a photography note. Yes, photography, I managed to add some new images to the following sections on my website.

Coasters – Flowers, Birds of PreyMousematsRulersMugs

I still have more mugs images to add, and it does yet show in finished mug image as I havent photographed them yet, but they should be on here on Saturday.

I.T, Dont you just love it!

I.T, Dont you just love it!

I think 2 of the most annoying IT problems you can have are, Printing issues, and Internet/Emailing issues.

Well last night I had the latter!

After having months of trouble free email and internet issues, last night they hit in anger.

Its always the way, just when you really need or want to do something Murphy reminds you of his law!

I had a problem that any email I tried to send from this domain, LeoPhot****hy, was instantly being blocked.  I had also recent heard that some people had found my emails being marked as incoming spam. Please make sure my domain (whole domain, including dot com) is in your SAFE list so my mails dont end up in the bin.

Now, I know a bit about IT, having taught it, and been working in it for 10 years, but do you think I could get the mail to go! After 40 frustrating minutes, really wanting to send a mail, I had to resort to using the web client instead. 

I think I now have the solution and will test it again tonight, so hopefully I can send mails again.  But please remember the SAFE senders list.

So whats next.  Well I am finalising some craft items in preparation for the next Alton Craft fair on the 8th July.  I have lots of new photos, and will be posting them on the website in the next few days.

The weather outlook for the weekend is good, so who knows, more photos perhaps?

Just for Boo!

Just for Boo!

Ok, so i’ve been a bit lax in my blog entries over the last few days. Well what can I say, i’ve been distracted with other things going on.

I also had HD installed, wow, it is quite impressive. The picture is crisper and you can see so much detail in things. Yesterday, whilst watching the tennis (no I dont follow it all) I noticed, whilst comparing normal BBC with BBC HD, that instead of just seeing a grey shade where the net is, you can actually see the crosses on the net itself! The quality of the picture is incredible!

I am not a keen football fan, nor tennis fan but I do like to support England & Britain in some, not all sports events. EG, I will follow Henman & Murray in the tennis, poor Rusedski, England in the football and Rugby, and of course F1. I don’t like cricket so don’t tend to watch that. I just think that is nice to show some support for your country and be a little patriotic. Hence the flags!

Right, photography!….  I remember that. Maybe someday soon I may get to talk about that or even post some new photos!  I took a couple at the weekend, again in the garden of some bees.  If they look any good I will post some here.  I also must try to go in search of butterflies again, or maybe go to a local nature reserve over the weekend, looking for dragonflies.  As yet though, the only plan for the weekend is the football!

Tomorrow is HD-Day

Tomorrow is HD-Day

Well after the 2 month wait and 2 week delay, HD will finally arrive tomorrow.

This will be great!  I will be able to watch the next England match in HD on Sunday, as well the premiere Saturday night, if I’m not busy! 🙂  I think the movie is The Forgotten, seen it, but a good film.

Also the is a Discovery HD channel.  I bet that will look amazing.  I wonder if there are any Pandas on it ….

England v Sweden

England v Sweden

iStock_000001697759Small.jpg

England 2 : Sweden 2

 Well as we know, football is a game of 2 halfs, and that was displayed last night. Sweden were always going to get that second goal.

Now, the question is, if Sven had played Owen more in the last 6 matches, would he have still hurt himself, or because Sven kept on substituting Owen, are we used to playing without him?

It did look like a nasty twist, lets hope he is better soon!

3 Days and Counting

3 Days and Counting

After the initial disappointments with SKY and their delay due to the manufacturers misjudging the amount of new HD subscribers, I will finally get SKY HD installed this Friday!

One of my friends has just had it installed and says that it lives upto the hype.  If the quality is actually the same as the demos in the shop, then it should be good.  After all, I bought the new TV based on the image quality I saw from the HD feed, so I am looking forward it seeing it for myself.  Roll on Friday!

Best laid plans…

Best laid plans…

Well I was right about the weather for the weekend, it was good.  The weekend didn’t quite go as planned, but things change that are sometimes out of our hands. 

This is ok.  We only get disappointed, if we expect, and conciously or not, we all do it.   However, disappointment is normally linked with looking forward to something.  So, patience is a virute and it means that you just then look forward to that something, or someone at another time. 

Life is still good.  Today’s outlook, hazy cloud with sun breaking through.  Forecast for the next 2 days, sunny, with a high on Wednesday.

What a Morning!

What a Morning!

Well, what can I say!

The England match was a nail biter, but we prevailed!  Yet more celebrations till the early hours of the morning.  So we are into the second round, but can we finish top of the group?!

So, the match was good, celebrations were great fun! and we have a positive feeling about the next match!  Today’s weather is great and the outlook for the weekend is excellent! Life is great!!

Brazil v Croatia

Brazil v Croatia

I was watching the Brazil v Croatia match last night with my Girlfriend.  She was adamant that Croatia was going to win, and had every confidence in them (was this because she had them as part of a sweepstake?) 🙂

Anyway Croatia did do really well, and I was actually beginning to think that they might be able to hold off Brazil.  However, as we know Brazil only need half a chance, and that came in the 44 minute!

Final score, Brazil 1 – Croatia 0

Celebrations and commiserations went on till the early hours.  This world cup is good fun!  Come on England!!

Why is it…?

Why is it…?

I quite often go out for a walk at lunchtime and as I have said before, I dont always take my camera. Reason being, is that to walk to the local pond takes 30 mins one way, and my wildlife equipment is heavy. It isn’t nice to carry all that gear in the racksack in a lunchbreak and get all hot and worn out.

So, why is it then, that when you do take it, you don’t see much, or don’t see what you saw before. I know wildlife photography is one of the most difficult precisely for that reason. That’s why I enjoy it. However over the last week, have missed:

Cygnets, Juvenile Woodpecker calling from its hole, Grass snake (I think), Rabbits, a Squirrel up close, Nuthatch feeding it’s partner in the nest and a Deer.

Lesson finally learnt. I will definately take the camera next time.

Hot Hot Hot

Hot Hot Hot

We Brits like to talk about the weather.  2 weeks ago we were complaining that it was doing nothing but raining.  Well now we got constant sun and its hot!  This is not helping our drought so we need to conserve more water.  Also this hot weather is not helping our England Team in Germany.

It look like our guys on Saturday just ran out of steam, and it was too hot for them.  The first half of the match was really good, but it just fell apart in the second.  And what was that about, taking off our top striker when were only 1 goal ahead, then changing the formation so the only England striker on the pitch had no one to play off of.  Maybe the heat go to the people on the bench as well!

Anyway, 3 points, thats all that matter I guess at this stage. 

So after the stressful football, and the disappointing F1 qualifying, I went out and had a lovely meal and evening. 

Saturday night was very hot, and sticky!

Sunday, hot, still no new photos, but the garden’s looking good.

What a lovely weekend!!