The View From Above

So I recently treated myself to a new toy, and learnt that it was possible to become even more of a geek! Therefore, unfortunately this post will be me Droning (pun absolutely 100% intended 😉 )

Yep, you guessed it ‘It’s a DRONE baby. I’ve gone full mid-life and splashed out on a, half-way decent, flying camera contraption. It was only a few hundred pounds, so that I could get used to it and see if I enjoy the pastime. Don’t panic, I didn’t go full on Mavic (insider quip about a range that can cost north of 1k, geeks out there nodding their heads in recognition right-about-now). The drone I bought was the JJRC X9 Heron.

In case you can’t tell, I do like it (I can hear the gasps of shock from each and every one of you). It feels like this is my, Geekvolutionary next step, as it were.

Believe or not there is genuine reasoning behind my motives. Growing up I always had a taste for adventure, I loved exploring and traditional boys type stuff, like: camping, fishing and general outdoor pursuits. Couple that with my love for tech, gadgets, video games and super heroes you have one complete (and somewhat chubby) little me. My parents always accepted me for who I was, but these sides of me were never nurtured by them. My mum was busy being a mum and doing practically everything in the house for everyone. My dad on the other hand was into sport (and drinking), and whilst I liked football, I could take it or leave it really. I did however manage to talk him into taking up fishing later on, and spent many great weekends learning the ins and outs of course fishing. I loved spending time with my older brother, playing video games and the like, some of the funniest and most treasured moments in my life stem from spending my youth with him, he was cool and caring (in his way), but he was never the outdoor type.

What I’m taking so long to say, I guess, is that I don’t my kids growing up standing on the sidelines wishing that it was them that had the RC Car or that they have to explore their own interests on their own. I want to get them interested in things early on so that they have things in their life to invest in and have a great excuse to meet like-minded folk. And ultimately have a give-it-a-go attitude.

As I’m writing this it occurs to me that I may be exercising some long held, deep rooted issues about my youth. Oops. Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining about my youth I had a great time but I do feel like I could possibly have had more adventures. But I do also believe it’s a lot easier these days and I may have more opportunities and easier access to things than my parents had.

All in all I can tell you that, droning (if that’s even a word) is great. It helps you feel like a big bloody kid whilst at the same time giving you a sense of exploration, seeing things from an angle you normally can’t or seeing/finding new things all together. I can certainly recommend it as a hobby. But that’s it, urges satisfied as far as remote control gadgets are concerned. All I need now is erm……. a more expensive drone, a racing drone and an RC Car, then I am definitely done (Shhhhhhhh 😉 ).

Hope to bring you more from drone-world soon.

So till next time peeps XXXX

Those Damn Barre Chords

So I am about six months into my rise to rock stardom. I just need to get younger by about twenty years, lose 5 stone, grow my hair back and develop some form of musical talent, but other than that I am right on track.

My most recent problem is getting my hands and my head in the right place to tackle them aforementioned ‘damn barre chords’. I get them in theory, it’s just my brain can’t translate them for my hands.

Don’t get me wrong I am definitely getting better at them than I was, just making quite slow progress. I have watched endless YouTube clips on the best way to execute them, and because of these I have developed my own theory on Barre Chords and to my mind the most accurate. It’s called the Enoughseneough model: and the gist is this; shut-up get on with it, it will hurt, and sound bad for a while till you start to get it. If you still can’t do it just practice more. This is my Mantra when learning Barre Chords, it seems to work for me and I think should be adopted by more teachers.

OK maybe not as harsh as that but from what I can see there are no quick fixes, just tweaks to improve technique.

Wow that feels better having a good old rant.

I will get better at guitar, with luck, fingers crossed, and touching wood (but actually touching my head in the comical, time honoured tradition)

Keep trying folks, we could all be on top of the pops next year, that’s still a thing right?

Blogging Resolutions

With lent nearly upon us, I am taking the opportunity to combine two of my recent blog-urges, to try posting on the go using the app and to simply blog more.

I am setting myself a target of at least once a week for a more lengthy blog and once for an app post (so twice a week then, I can hear you all say).

Blogging is important to me but like most things in my life at the minute (like playing the guitar, reading or woodwork) it will happen only when I get round to it. Work takes up a lot of my time and the remainder seems to be taken up with, tidying the house washing up or stopping the kids killing each other.

So this is it the first ‘app blog’ and I have to say, like the legend before me Louis Walsh (in a cheesy Irish accent) “I like it”. It isn’t as difficult to write on as I imagined it would be (although please ignore any predictive text blunders) and I must admit there’s a lot less faffing around using images than on the laptop. I am sure that this will help me blog more, sorry Facebook and Twitter, but if I can blog on the go I am sure that my use of these apps will take a hit.

So on the whole I’m impressed, I have yet to try other features but I will get round to it as time goes on.

Stay lucky people and I will see you soon.

Kisses

Getting to grips with the Guitar

New Year, New Beginnings……well sort of.  I have been attempting to learn the guitar now for a few months and I am loving it.   I have a naughty little acoustic called Lucy and a very bog-standard Encore electric guitar that I can’t bring myself to name.

So with Christmas looming I asked everyone for money so that I can treat myself to a new electric, as I have almost exclusively been playing Lucy but now feel that it’s time to start becoming a world famous guitarist, can’t see it being too tough.

I looked at the best budget guitars focusing on price, looks sound and play-ability and I came up with a few options, but by far the sexiest (As I love the Gibson Les Paul look) was the Epiphone Les Paul Special II, behold:

I am now in love and thinking of an appropriate name (answers on a postcard).  It’s surprising just how heavy it was when I first tried it but when you see the store owner playing it like Hendrix it’s difficult not to fall in love.

So a few weeks in and I am up to my eyeballs in songs to learn (cover image, a typical Sunday morning for me) and I am all over YouTube looking for Blues licks to learn.  I can’t wait to show my guitar teacher and hoping he approves of the purchase.

I hope that all you guys out there are having the opportunity to develop yourselves and have things to strive for, it’s hard at the time but when you get it right you have massive internal Hi-5’s or Big-10’s if its a particularly big achievement.  It really is good for the soul.

So if , on the telly, you see a slightly rotund middle aged dude with that sexy guitar playing sketchy versions of Wonderwall you will know that I have made it.

Next time people, and another resolution is to blog more.  See you soon and many kisses sent your way.

Scoring Man Points

Recently I have felt the need to get creative, to make things, and being the Blokey-bloke that I am, I decided that a return to the good old Woodwork was needed.  A quick look around confirmed that the first challenge of any amateur woodworker was to make his own workbench (lovingly being strength tested by the three munchkins in the feature image).

I had to make plans, draw pictures and get to work.  The first task was to work out the height and being a Munchkin myself I opted for a modest 34″.  If you want to get a general idea just have a quick Google but DON’T look into it too closely you will never be able to look away, there are whole books dedicated to this subject (I know..who has that kind of time to spare).  Then I designed the bench, the design was later to change as I felt there would be some weak points.  Mapped out what was needed off I  went to get the timbered up.  Thanks to some family kindness I was able to get a discount too, cheers bud.

I have found that the most difficult thing about building a bench is……having children.  The most challenging thing was just getting the time to spend in the workshop.  Therefore this build took place over three sessions, firstly was the basic structure, (boring stuff) I decided to plumb for 12mm ply as opposed to the suggested 18mm as I wanted to keep the weight down as I wanted this to be light and mobile.  I had everything cut to size for the basic structure so that it was basically a flat pack build.

For a long time I have admired people that can make things with their own hands and I felt that this should be me, I guess I also want the kids to see me do stuff like this, to show them that it can be done and they don’t needs to be slaves to consumerism.  Added to this, I don’t want to lose (or rather really want to pass on) the ethos I was bought up with, the ‘make do and mend’ mentality and skills my parents were so proud of, which I suppose came from their parents living through the war and having no other option.

I digress, then I built the frame made out of 3″x2″.  Again this is quite heavy but very sturdy.  On the final build I did try to time laps our progress, (I say our, as I had help from my best bud, partner in crime and other laddish cliches) however who knew that it takes the power of three suns to power it and phone duly died.

As I said this was pretty much a flat pack so I was able to match the frame to the top exactly.  It went swiftly and the progress we made was very impressive.  Once completed the frame we turned it over and attached the 4″ casters, therefore our frame was 30″ in height.  Then all that was left was to sink in the bottom shelf and attach the top.  This had a nice dark wood look to it with, may I say, a lovely grain.  I then added a simple pine trim round the edge for a sleek finish.

All that was left was to adorn my achievement with the necessary tools and ablutions that all men (and woodworkie ladies) should possess.  I have tried my hand already at making candle holders and a guitar stand that needs attention as the guitar just falls off,  oops.

To get started I had a few tools already, I know a lot of people are buying up budget tools from places like Aldi and Lidl, but I decided to buy decent second hand tools and hopefully get a good machine that will perform as opposed to an okay machine that struggles a bit.  That’s just my thoughts though.

So if your thinking of having a go at a bit of the old woodwork, do it, it is fun relatively cheap and you get a huge sense of accomplishment from producing something, who knows it could be the start of a life long love or even career.

Much love to you, toodles.