Nearly Ready

04-05-2012

For the past few weeks I have been catching up on some coding for The Bauble that had been building up. Mainly The Gallery section of the site. When I originally coded that part up it was meant to be a temporary fix, just something to fling up a few images now and then.

But as I finally found time to get back into art and what not it became clear that The Gallery was shoddily coded. The "fling and forget" side of it was hampering me. Sadly the time I realised that was also the start of some busy months (nah two years) for myself and the ladyfriend. Weddings, birthdays, house buying, house moving, house decorating...this all eats up time.

Sure you could argue that I should just one of the hundreds of gallery options out there on the web, but I've also liked trying to code up things myself. Helps learn stuff I always figure.

So I have been chipping away whenever I got a few minutes at the code. Redesigning what was in place already and creating some new bits along the way. All in all it's more or less finished, aside from some testing.

Some bugs have surfaced though as a result of the new gallery. One bug is more just an oversight. When I changed the layout of the site to this new one, what I refer to as "The Bubble" layout, I forgot that the old gallery resized images to match the dimensions of the older layout. Going to have to fix up a few old rants so that the images in the old gallery resize correctly. While I have locked down the older code the images are still in place (mainly because I didn't feel like going through entries trying to patch up the dimensions of the images ).

Blue_jester

Long Drop

15-04-2012

Most people spend the weekend relaxing. Watching tv, catching up on projects and hobbies and that lark. Myself and the ladyfriend? Well we, along with a large portion of our friends and family, all decided to spend Saturday dropping from the roof of Lansdowne Stadium into the seats.

Sure it is only as high as twelve double decker buses stacked on top of each other. That's nothing

Anyway I decided to try and record the whole thing as best I could with me phone. It sort of worked, aside from me poorly placing the phone at my side. So at one point my hand covers the lens on the way down.

But the general idea is there for the viewing.

Video number one is a bit long, seventeen minutes and change, because I recorded a lot of the joking we all did waiting to get strapped to the abseil gear.

Video #1

Video number two is literally just me abseiling down, minus the panic talk from the first video
Video #2

= EDIT =
There's a funny issue happening with Vimeo lately. Embedded videos aren't playing on mobile devices. I tried to use the suggested fix (some new universal player they have) and this caused the videos to break completely on The Bauble. So instead I have links to the videos, sorry for the extra hop.

Blue_jester

Just What The Doctor Ordered

07-04-2012

Sometimes you just need a day at the weekend to just relax. Not catch up on pet projects/hobbies. Not visit friends or family. Not finish DIY projects or clean the house. Just a single day with no obligations. A free day to spend as you please.

Of course as anybody will tell you these type of days are like gold dust, they so rarely happen. If they even happen at all. It is entirely possible to go through an entire year and wonder if you actually had a "weekend" in it?

But today just so happened to be one of those magical free days. Nothing on the cards. Nobody needing mine or the lady friend's attention. A day that was entirely free to do with as we pleased.

Utter bliss.

It began with me being woken from my slumber by breakfast in bed, a treat usually reserved for my birthday. As I am the early riser in the relationship I usually make the breakfast, allowing the lady friend to continue her not needed beauty sleep (brownie points right ). In fact it was a slumber that had gone on well past my usual hour of getting up on a Saturday. So all in all the freshly made hazelnut coffee with a bacon and egg bagel was thoroughly enjoyed. This was followed up by the pair of us watching two episodes of a show we like, a nice way to digest the bagel.

But what better way to finish up a nice and relaxing day than going to the Quarter Final of the Heineken Cup in Lansdowne (I won't be calling it that other thing any time soon) to see Cardiff Blues getting a beating by Leinster. The lady friend had gotten us tickets to the match and to top it off I am now the owner of an actual blue jester hat, complete with baubles that dingle.

Such a match, such an atmosphere, such a perfect ending to a long needed weekend day of rest. A relaxing oasis in the hectic calendar that is life these days.

Now if only it was possible to freeze time so the day never ended

Blue_jester