If…

Ah… Scotland.

It’s the weekend!

It’s Friday night and for the first time in a while I’m neither working or leading worship.  The boys are here and there is football and rugby a plenty on TV.  At the moment David is playing Pebble Beach on Tiger Woods.  He looks pleased so he must be playing well!

I think we might go shopping for books tomorrow.

I’ve been very busy over the past couple of weeks and I’m hoping that over the next couple life might slow down to something around about hectic.

Youth Forum went really well last weekend.  We had 22 young people form all over Scotland who came together and had a great time, were very creative and didn’t sleep.

My workshop on Presentation at Synod (same time as Youth Forum) went well and people seemed to enjoy it and hopefully got something out of it.  I talked mostly about how not to do powerpoint.  Nothing beats a rainbow wordart on a red or yellow background!

In the evening I was quiz master for the now annual Synod Quiz.  We found a mobile disco set up in the back of the stage so it was just like old times.  The old people were asking for me to turn the music down and the young people were asking if I had any decent music.  Brings back some great memories of DJing in pubs or at a wedding.

On Sunday night we headed up to Biggar to say happy mother’s day to my mum.  She seemed really pleased to see us and we had a good laugh, mostly at my dad. (isn’t that what dads are for?)

This week has flown in.  I tried to have Monday off but spent most of the day working, dropping stuff off at Christian Aid and Great Big Resources after Synod.  The rest of the week… writing essays, teaching class, going to class, catching up on email, writing essays.  Did I mention I had an essay to hand in this week?

I’m now waiting on Office for Mac 2008 to appear through the letterbox.  I wonder if it still defaults everything to Times New Roman when you delete anything?

In other news… the camera I hoped to get for my birthday is sold out everywhere that had it a sensible price!  Blast!  The search begins again…

Oh, and why do Mac hide the # key?  Took me ages to find it!!!  LOL

It’s my birthday

I’m feeling a bit better today, which is good because it’s my 36th birthday.  How old does that sound!!!

I’ve decided on the Fuji S6500 camera so I’ll order it today I think.

Thanks to John and Rich for the advice!  Much appreciated.

So far I’ve played a couple of rounds of golf at Riviera on Tiger Woods on the Wii, had a lovely brunch of bagels with scrambled egg and smoked salmon and Arsenal are playing Manchester Utd on TV later.  Steak for dinner and a nice glass of wine with my beautiful wife and 3:10 to Yuma on DVD to watch.  What more could an old guy ask for?

Old Skool TV

Swap Show is BACK!!!

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about… Swap Shop was BBC TV’s Saturday morning kids show when I was a kid.  It involved Noel Edmonds (Deal or No Deal) brokering deals between kids to swap stuff they don’t want anymore.

It’s back hosted by Basil Brush and a bloke called Barney and it’s great.  Very low tech in ‘you could make this at home with a camcorder’ kind of way.  Full of games with gunge and random swaps it’s a real throw back.

Swap of the day: PS2 for a football!!!  Haven’t these kids heard of EBAY!!!

sick and tired

I’ve been both, perhaps the former being the result of the later, but more likely just the seasonal sore throat that is doing the rounds.

I’ve had a pretty busy time at work over the past few days being in Perth, Edinburgh (twice in 12 hours), Fraserburgh and Clydebank in 3 days.  So, feeling lousy, I cancelled my meeting with Jan (sorry Jan, it would have been great to see you) and spent a day doing nothing!

When I say nothing I really mean watching 3 episodes of season 1 of Lost which I didn’t watch when it came out.  I liked it lots but it seems to have disappeared from my Virgin on demand service which sucks cause I have 22 episodes to go!!!  I didn’t even check my email!!!

Anyway, back to work today!  I’m feeling a bit better so on with the show.

Sporting Day!

Today has been a day of sports!  I’ve watched:

some golf - the President’s Cup - c’mon the rest of the world!

2 games of football (soccer) with Motherwell playing pretty well against Rangers, ending up with a 1-1 draw and Man United beating Birmingham 1-0

a college (American) football game which the Bulls won

the F1 grand prix qualifying where Lewis Hamilton is on pole for tomorrow’s race

half of the Wales v Fiji game from the Rugby World Cup where Fiji won to knock Wales out and all of Scotland’s game against Italy where we won by 2 points to proceed to the quarter finals

and I’m now watching the Phillies v Nationals in the MLB.

Who says Saturdays aren’t fun!

TV and Scotland’s International Matches

Scotland’s international football games are all on Sky.  I don’t have Sky, I don’t want Sky.  I sure don’t want to pay to have Sky Sports.  I know I can probably pay per view online but I want Scotland’s International football and rugby games to be on the BBC or ITV.  Is that too much to ask?

So on Wednesday night as Scotland take the field at the Stade de France, top of their qualifying group for Euro 2008, that majority of Scots won’t be able to watch their heroes because they don’t have Sky Sports.

So, who’s to blame?  The SFA?  They sold the rights.  Or is it BBC or STV?  Too cheap to buy the rights?

There is a rule in the UK that certain events MUST be shown on terrestrial tv.  The Open Golf, Wimbledon, the World Cup.  Why on earth are national team games not on that list?

Oh, never mind.  It’s ok.  The ENGLAND game is on BBC.  Of course we’ll all want to watch that!!!

one day, one room

I watched House late last night on Hallmark.  I don’t watch it often but enjoy it when I do, even though Hugh Laurie with an American accent takes a bit of getting used to.

Last night the ever grumpy and emotionally closed off House was confronted with a rape victim called Eve who just wanted to talk to him.  He of course couldn’t and so they went back and forth about why she wanted to talk but not about what happened to her.

She said something like ‘Life is a series of rooms that you share with people.  Today is this room and we are the ones who are in it’.

I was struck by this and have to say that as a description of life it makes lots of sense.  We share our lives with many different people, one room and one day at a time.  I wonder if we ever make the most of the chance we have to share in other people’s journeys and to find out who they are and where they have been.

House didn’t want to share himself, that’s not what he does.  But then House strikes me as an exaggeration of all of us.  We are all closed and defensive most of the time.

I wonder which room I will be in today and who will share that room with me?

the west wing - best tv show ever

I haven’t written much about The West Wing.  I guess I started blogging after it ended but Matt posted this clip and another and it reminded me just how amazing the show was.  This is how season 2 ends…

Just amazing.