There must be something in the air though, because the day after tomorrow, my brother-in-law Jonny, aka wikiriffs will be marrying Kristina, aka bookworm_chic. Weddings are usually really good, provided you know the couple well – especially for the bride and groom. I know that my wedding was an amazing day for both Sarah & I, largly because it made us realise quite how many friends & family we had that cared about us.

Now, the build up is a whole different matter. It’s always stressful, no matter what scale wedding you’re having and no matter how much you try and convince yourself that the wedding doesn’t matter – it’s the marriage that counts. That is almost certainly true – but you will still be stressed!

In the Ardern-Casto household, however, I would like to think the scene is something like this (I AM IN NO WAY MAKING ANY COMPARISON BETWEEN KRISTINA AND MISS PIGGY!!!!)
(I’ll say nothing about the resemblance of Jonny to Kermit though…) :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFw4L7-AFdw

I particularly love the line “Wedding, wedding, pig and froggy wedding”

If you’ve been following me long enough, then you know that periodically I get fed up & completely overhaul my website. Well, its that time again and as you can see I’ve gone for a lighter approach this time.

A couple of months ago I switched to tumblr for blogging as it was easy to post just an image, video, or a post of just a few words. I could also do it from my phone.

Lately I’ve been missing blogging in longhand like this, so hopefully along with the new design will also come an end to me neglecting to blog. I also hope to have more interesting and/or funny things to say! I’ll probably keep my tumblr so that I can post the short & sweet items as well.

All the website themes I design are built from the ground up, and are most often bespoke themes commissioned by clients.

If you would like a site built then please get in touch to discuss costs & requirements.

If you require a complete marketing consultation, I also accept work through H2o Services who can provide training, advice and support in a range of marketing, business and management principles including advertising, branding & strategic direction in addition to the website services that I can provide.

When I started my career in IT back in 2008 I was sent to London to do some training. I took a couple of Microsoft courses and then a few exams.

Because I passed those exams, I was given the title MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) and given a piece of paper saying that Bill Gates is ok with me fiddling with computers. I also got a card to put in my wallet saying the same thing.

I still have that card in my wallet today. The only time I’ve ever taken it out is when I’m travelling abroad – I take only what’s necesarry to minimalise the impact if I lose the wallet or get pick pocketed. When I get home it’s put back in there again with my Tesco clubcard, my DVD rental card everything else.

I’m not particularly proud of my qualification and I don’t tell people or flash the card to try and impress anyone. It just sits there filling a gap in my wallet.

I’ve asked a couple of other MCPs and they are the same. They carry it around, but have never done anything with it.

I wonder if secretly we all hope for some exciting scenario to unfold. In films and on TV a man in a restaurant will choke and the waiter shouts ‘is there a doctor in the house’ and a hero steps forward.

Perhaps one day I’ll be on a plane and the stewards will come running “Emergency, quick… is there an MCP on board?! The navigation computer has just been upgraded and now it’s asking for a missing component from Microsoft .NET – else it’ll route us into North Korea! – You’ll have to show us your MCP card, you can’t be too careful…”

What’s in your wallet?

Jonny asked me to help him film the new WikiRiffs video for this week. If you don’t know what it’s all about, then essentially he click’s ‘random article’ on wikipedia once a week, and writes a song about it – with a video. Head over to his youtube channel: youtube.com/wikiriffs where he can explain it better than I ever could.

I’ve helped him out a few times before with camera work & editing tips etc, but this time I really felt I was able to contribute creatively towards the video – being ‘director of photography’ as Jonny put it. He was fed up (understandably) of always filming around my house & garden, so we’re really appreciative of being allowed to use the local school hall late on Tues evening!

We’re both really happy with how this has turned out, so without further ado, I present Sara Sommerfield. Please let us know what you think.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq6Ux-_htNM

(Click here to watch if you aren’t reading this on my blog @ robpannell.com)

So week 10 of The Big Five Two has come and gone.

Last night I took my Bro-in-law Jonny to the school hall, where my church meets each week, because he wanted a stage setting for his latest video (see youtube.com/wikiriffs for awesomeness). Plus he needed a cameraman, so it was great to be involved & have some serious creative input into it.

This weeks song was a piano based jazz style ballad thing, so clearly we needed piano shots. This upright lives in the hall so we thought it’d be a great iea to dismantle the case and film the inner workings as he played.

I snuck a few photos in between takes and I’m really glad I did.

The video we shot will be on the wikiriffs youtube channel early hours tomorrow morning (17th)

I visited my parents this weekend & stayed in the guest room, which used to be my bedroom.

Hanging on the wall was the dartboard I put there when I was about 16. Since I was on the lookout for pictures to catch up with the project anyway, I thought it would be good to immortalise the memory.

Written on the chalkboard cabinet-doors were two messages that I think were written on the same day. On the left door a message left by a couple of mates who dropped by when I was out, and on the right, a message from Sarah reminding me of the date that we would get married.

I love that it’s still there, but I think shortly my folks will take it down and pass it back to me for use in my house. Hopefully I can keep the messages safe in transit.

Well it’s week 10 of the big five two, so naturally I’ve today submitted my picture for week 8. Hmm.

I saw this solar radiometer on my Grandad’s windowsill and thought it would make a good subject. I grabbed a piece of white A4 for a backdrop & started playing with the flashgun. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Eyes open now for shots for weeks 9-11!

http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/robert-lane-greene/apple-v-google?page=full

A really interesting read for the more geeky, but one particular part that struck me was the insight from Scott Adams. More of an anthropological observation than technical comment :

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, writes a blog of pointed commentary, largely aimed at techies. Last year he depicted technology-tethered humans as de facto cyborgs: “If a cyborg can remove its digital eye and leave it on a shelf as a surveillance device, and I think we all agree that it can, then your cellphone qualifies as part of your body.” He sees the phone as an exobrain: “Your regular brain uses your exobrain to outsource part of its memory, and perform other functions, such as GPS navigation, or searching the internet. If you’re anything like me, your exobrain is with you 24-hours a day.”

A very astute man is he.

So it’s taken me up until the end of the second month to fall behind with my five-two project… who’d have guessed it’s be this soon?

Well, pretty much anyone that knows me actually. In any case, I have shot seven and will catch up on both eight and nine this week.

This scene happened to unfold before me. I was sat on the sofa watching TV when the sun broke out through the rain clouds and cast the shadow of the blinds across the door and floor. I immediately saw the potential and lept off the sofa (dislodging the cat from my lap on the way) to grab my camera from upstairs. When I got back, the cat had taken his place in the warm sunshine – thus making himself the subject of the shot.

I love it when an unplanned occurrence comes together…