My life's happenings (boring at present)

There is a lot happening at work at present with a number of redundancy's. It looks like my job will change with me getting another department to manage. I can't blog too much about this at present but I've an awful feeling my life is going to get very stressfull.

Good news from work is we have just had a £1,000 bonus (about £700 after tax).

Monday last week my team clutched defeat out of the jaws of victory in the cup. I would hate to critisise anyone individually but Lofty you bottled it.

Last Thursday ten of us from work went out for a meal and a few beers in York it was a good night but quite tame with no real scandal to report. I also called the bluff of another girl (she reads this blog) who has been giving me stick for giving someone else a foot massage at a previous outing ("V" you chickend out).

This weekend I played Table Tennis in one of our clubs tournaments (came 4th). I was quite happy with my performance as I have not played since before my vacation and I have a big National Grand Prix event coming up in a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow I will be playing Golf after work in one of our society competitions, this will be my first outing of the year so I will probably come last. Its also bound to rain.

I've volunteered to set the quiz questions at the Selby T.T.A. presentation evening a week on Thursday, don't know why it just seemed a good idea at the time.

My Mp3 player as thrown a wobbler but its still under warranty so its back to the shop next weekend.

Good news is the pound is strong against the dollar at present so I should have more spending money for my vacation.

Thats about my life at present (boring)

Bloggers advice - Best North American Cities to Visit

As most people who read my blog know one thing I like doing is visiting various Cities on my vacations. I am currently concentrating on North America and I am looking for genuine opinions.

So Blogging friends this is what I want to do :-

I want your advice on which North American Cities you think I would enjoy visiting. Please pick your top five choices (with comments if you wish) and rank them in order of preference (USA or Canada). I will give five points to each top choice, four for 2nd, Three for 3rd etc. I will then add the points up and create a ranking list of places to visit.

For info - I have already visited Chicago, New York, Memphis & Nashville. I have also a visit to St Louis planned in June.
I am looking for Cities I have not visited.
I am looking for places that are friendly (important when travelling solo).
I enjoy a good live music scene.
During the day time I enjoy exploring the city on foot.

I will be looking to visit the top choice(s) over the next year or so (next visit probably September).

Take this Fun Quiz

Fun quiz
Here is a fun one that I got from Jenny's blog.
Just copy and paste it with your answers into a comment to share!

I will post my answers that I entered on Jenny's blog in a comment as well.

1. Name:
2. Date of birth:
3. Where you live:
4. What makes you happy:
5. Currently listening/the last thing you listened to:
6. Do you read my blog?:
7. If yes, what makes it especially good or bad?:
8. An interesting fact about you:
9. Are you in love/do you have a crush at the moment?:
10. Favourite place to spend time:
11. Favourite lyric:
12. The best time of the year:

RECOMMEND
1. A film:
2. A book:
3. A band, a song, or album:

PLUS
1. One thing you like about me:
2. Two things you like about yourself:
3. Look at my friends-list and tell what you like about one of our mutual friends:
4. Put this in your journal/blogger so that I can tell you what I like about you.

Lost 2 and gained 100 pounds this week

This is this weeks Wednesday weigh in results.

Last week - 129lbs (correction 229lbs)

This week - 127lbs (sorry 227lbs) not enough lost but at least the right direction

Target by 24th June = 215lbs


I did gain some pounds this week when I won £100 on a local Soccer Clubs annual raffle. This will pay for a couple of good nights out on my next vacation.

Music Years - Great Live Acts I've seen - The Jam

The Jam

I saw "The Jam" back in about 1980 at Bridlington Spa and they were awesome. The three members Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckner who were school boy friends from Woking, Surrey.

They formed the group as teenagers in 1973 having their first chart hit "In the City " in 1977. They went on to have numerous chart hits including 4 number one's "Going Underground", "Start", "A town called Malice" and "Beat Surrender".

One of my personal favorite songs other than these is "The Bitterest Pill"

They also had a string of succesfull albums with my personal favorite been "Setting Sons" (check it out).

When the group split up in 1983 main songwriter Weller went on to form another succesfull group "The Style Council" with keyboard player Mick Talbot from "The Merton Parkas". Weller followed this up with a solo career and is still going strong today, I am still a fan and have got most of his albums.

Weller pictured above was recently given the services to music honour at the Brit awards.

What Live Group from years ago influenced you ?

Devastated

Well today I was planning to tell the tale of how my soccer team had returned to the premiership but alas it was not to be as we went down 3-0 to Watford.

Perhaps we were asking too much of our club to return to the big time after all we have been through, 5 days from been bankrupt 15 month ago, having to sell all our best players, etc.

Logic tells us with our squad of loaned players, free transfers and the one's nobody else wanted shouldn't even have been this close is no comfort to us. We are Leeds and we are proud Yorkshire people and this was so important.

The match ok we can have our moans at 1-0 we should have had a penalty when their goalkeeper fouled Hulsey (photo 3), there 2nd goal should have been our throw in not theirs, but at the end of the day we are honest and accept Watford as the better team and wish them luck.

History tells us we will once again put our dissapointment behind us and return to fight another day but at this moment in time I am devastated.

Boys who know no fear

What did you have
Fans of Leeds United
What did you have ?
Our main rivals would say
You had the world at your feet
Each squad member a jewel
Then your rivals came
And tried to take them from you

And you took on the world
Young boys who knew no fear
You fought and you died
And they stole the jewels from you

Long time ago
Said a fine old Leeds fan
Long time ago
This fine old Leeds fan did say

We had dreams and hope
Young boys who knew no fear
In a fortress strong
Back in those Don Revie days
And our fearsome cries
They shook the very heavens
And we held the line
United to the core

What have you now
Fans of Leeds United
What have you now
Our main rivals will say
We have fine brave fans
The likes you’ll never muster
Who’ll search for jewels
In settings of pure white Gold

And we’ll take on the world
Young boys who know no fear
And the White rose of Leeds
Shall rise from the ashes again.

This is a Leeds song written by a life long Leeds fan (not me) but I just felt I should publish it today.

Sunday's Invasion of Cardiff

Sunday is the play off Final between my team Leeds United and Watford to see who is promoted to the Premiership.
Despite been one of the countries biggest clubs we were relegated two years ago after bad management nearly bankrupt the club. We were £120,000,000 in dept. We had to sell virtually all our players and most people in football wanted to see us go out of buisness.
Everyone other than Leeds supporters hate us but we don't care, we are proud of our club win or lose.
We no longer have the quality of players we had in our glory years but what we have got is a squad that will run their guts out for the club.
We also have one of the craziest most fanatical and noisy bunch of supporters in world football they are worth an extra man.
Our tickets that we were given for this match (33,000) sold out straight away thousands of others will have got tickets from elsewhere the atmosphere in Cardiff will be electric.
When the players come out our song "Marching on together" will be deafening the players can't fail to be lifted, Watford will freeze.
As was once said this is not a game of Life and death it is far more important than that.

Blogging Fat Busters

A lot of Blog articles I read at present are about losing weight. Now I have not blogged about this subject before on my own blog but as a fully paid up member of Blogging Fatties I think I should.

This is my story as I see it, from been a young child I have always carried extra pounds which I found dificult to lose, probably lack of effort on my part. Ok some people do predjudice against you but I learned to live with that with my policy in life "Treat others as they treat you".

My main problem is the same as most people with weight problems it is the fact I love food, socialising (including drink), and bad diet.

Although heavy I have always considered myself reasonably fit as I have competed well and succesfully at numerous sports. However I reckon I could have done even better if I was carrying less weight.

As an adult at 5ft 9in tall I used to average just under 200lbs (don't tell me still too heavy). Over the past 8 or 9 years various changes to my job through promotion made it become more office bound and less physical, I blame this for my weight creeping up. I suppose this was mainly my own fault for not dealing with my life style.

About 4 years ago me and a bloke at work of similar build made an effort to lose weight, we did it competitevly which suits me. Every Friday morning we would go and have a weigh in and who had lost most weight that week won the bet we had (this worked for us both). Anyway we stopped doing this in the summer of that year and slowly my weight returned.

Since Last Christmas I have made the decision to lose weight by setting targets, I am actually using my vacations as target dates. My intention is to get the weight off in small stages as I think this will help me keep it off. From my experience people who take weight off quickly usually end up putting it back on.

I will add to this I will not allow dieting to effect my social life, I will let myself go from time to time, ie, Vacations, party's & special occasions.

The Facts so far -

Weight on January 1st - 249lbs

Target for 1st Vacation April 26th - 220lbs

Actual weight before 1st Vacation - 226lbs (6lb failure)

Weight following vacation May 10th - 232lbs I was pleased with this I thought I may come back even heavier (I think the amount of walking I did helped counter the effects of the food, drink & party lifestyle).

Weight today after one week home - 229lbs A step in the right direction.

New Target for next Vacation June 25th - 215lbs

Wish me luck.

ps: The photo is not me.

Vacation

It is now one week since I returned from my vacation and the following nine reports tell the story in Pictures (added tonight) and words, hope you all enjoy them.

Less then 6 weeks to my next adventure.

Chicago Immigrants March Monday 1st May 2006

While I was in Chicago the immigration march took place and although I don't want to comment on American politics you can't fail to be impressed. I stood at the corner of Jackson and State streets and took numerous photo's of the marchers. It was estimated around 500,000 people were involved and took nearly two hours for them all to pass by, the most amazing thing to me was how peacefull it was.
I think I was the only person on the streets that day that didn't want to be American.

Vacation - Chicago Photo's

Vacation - Nashville Photo's

Day 10 - The Big Match

Friday came and I was nervous Championship play off semi-final 1st leg Leeds versus Preston and I am in Nashville. Following research I knew one bar in town "Two Doors Down" was showing the match live from 1.30pm.

I got up at 9.30am following another hectic night out and got ready for my morning walk. As I got dressed what shall I wear was not an option as my White Leeds shirt came out of the drawer, also my Leeds cap was to be worn the locals were about to be educated.

Proudly I walked from my Hotel to downtown Nashville parading my colours for all to see (not a scum shirt in site). Around 12 noon my pre match nerves were twitching so I made my way to the sports bar for a beer or two to get me in the mood. Missing breakfast I checked out the bar menu and noticed todays special was Fish & Chips (fries), now this is a Yorkshire delicacy, the gods are with us, my order was placed.

When the Fish came it turned out to be Catfish which was ok but not a patch on Cod or Haddock so I had to quickly swill it down with a couple more beers.

I got talking to a couple of local that were watching another TV stressing the importance of this match but they kept watching the bull riding on the other channel.

Kick off time 1.45pm came I ordered another Beer but no match I was panicking what has happend but relief came when the message came on the screen "kick off delayed for 15 minutes for crowd congestion". The pictures then scanned Elland Road Stadium it was packed to the rafters.

It the showed the players in the tunnel Leeds in White, Preston in Yellow when one local Fruit Cake came over looked at the teams, looked at my shirt and asked the question "Which is your team ?" I was polite with my answer.

The match started with Leeds on top, I was continually up off my stool in excitment, my drinking got faster and faster. During the first half penalty turned down be blind referee, Killa hits the post, things not going well.

Half time came so I ordered more beer and tried to teach the locals the words to "Marching on Together" but I think they were a little shy about their singing.

The second halh started and after a few minutes disaster struck, a rare Preston attack, our defence stood like statues, goal, one nil Preston, I ordered another beer and slumped back on my stool.

For the rest of the match play was scappy I was quiet until 10 minutes from time a Leeds attack was stopped by a foul, free kick 25 yards from goal, was this our chance. Preston formed their wall and up stepped our AMERICAN International Eddie Lewis. A thunderous curling left foot shot into the top corner, weve equalised, I love Americans, we are back, I ordered another Beer.

The match finished one apiece so it was going to be decided at Preston while I am at Chicago airport on my way home on Monday, I just hope I can find a TV that is showing it.

After the match I had a few more beers with the locals before making my way back to my Hotel at 5.30pm. I thought I'll have a couple of hours nap on my bed before going out for the night and my evening meal.

I had the nap but didn't wake while after 1am a little late for getting ready to go out and I was starving so it was a raid on the Hotel vending machine for junk food that night.

One good thing was the fact that I made breakfast for the first time.


Further Story - On the way home I couldn't find anywhere at Chicago Airport showing the 2nd match. I arrived back in England not knowing the result and was desperate to find out.

I got to Manchester Airport Railway Station got on my train with my luggage when I noticed a shop on the platform, my train had 6 minutes to go so I asked a man to watch my luggage while I ran from the train grabbed a newspaper and went to the counter to pay, as soon as the lady asked for my money I realised my wallet was full of American dollars my English money was in my bag, I apologised gave her the paper back and ran back to the train.

It wasn't while one hour later when I got to Leeds station that I found out the result a 2-0 victory, Leeds in the final. this match is against Watford in Cardiff next sunday 21st May with the winners getting promoted to the Premiership.

Photo is of Leeds players celebrating after the 2nd leg in Preston.

Day 7 - Welcome to Nashville

Anyone that has read my previous 4 posts about my vacation will realise I had a great time in Chicago and it is obvious I would be slightly sad to move on.

I arrived mid afternoon at Nashville airport not really knowing much about the city or its people, I got a taxi to my hotel the Best Western Music Row which took around 20 minutes. I was quite tired after my late nights and over the top drinking and clubbing so I was planning a quiet night (it was only tuesday).

I only had two priorities get a decent meal and find a sports bar called "Two Doors Down". This bar was important because somebody had replied to my post on "Tripadvisor" that this is the best chance of watching the Leeds Utd play off semi-final on Friday (I just had to find out).

About 6pm I was changed and asked the Hotel receptionist if she knew where I could get a meal. She told me there were a number of bars across the car park opposite the hotel. I had a walk over and to my amazment the first place I saw was "Two Doors Down".

I entered the bar and it was full of TV screens with various sports channels playing. I sat down at the bar and ordered my first beer of the day. I got talking to the bar man and eventually ordered a meal which was enjoyable. Eventually I asked him about the Leeds match and he didn't know but the owner would. He went off to find the owner returning later with the news I wanted to hear, it will be shown live on a cable channel from 1.30pm Friday. It turns out they are the only bar in Nashville with this channel, what luck.

About 9pm and following a few more beers I decided to move on telling them I would be back Friday. I was going to make my way back to the hotel but saw an Irish pub called "Dan McGuiness" so I thought I would have a look in and knock the froth off a couple more beers.

I got sat down at the bar drinking my first beer when two attractive young ladies came in and sat next to me. It wasn't long before we were talking and introducing ourselves they seemed really nice. They were both 28 years old that lived close to Nashville but origionated from elsewhere (Holly from San antonio and Amanda from Tupelo).

We started telling jokes and the bar man joined in when he could it was a good laugh, we all got on great. The drinks started flowing more and more as we chatted in a very relaxed atmosphere. Holly told me she had a five year old son and showed me is picture, he looks really cute, she talked about him a lot, she really loves him.

It surprised me that two attractive girls wanted to chat with a stranger 20 years older than them when there was younger people in the bar, so I asked. They told me they were enjoying my company, that pleased me a lot.

Holly and myself actually exchanged blog site addresses (she is on My Space) and we all had our photo's took. I can't stress enough how nice these girls were we talked about everything no subject was left out (and Holly if you read this I still don't think you need a boob job).

Eventually some other friends of the girls came in and started talking to them, It was about midnight so I thought I wouldn't outstay my welcome and left to go back to my Hotel. The girls had been good to me but as a older man I didn't think it fair to hang around I thought the other crowd contained some lads who may want to chat them up.

I know now I made the wrong decision the girls actually wanted to stay with me they were having as much fun as I was. How do I know this ? Holly as kept in contact via e'mail. She was worried that they had upset me somehow (no way). She as told me the other group were jerks and after they missed me they actually toured up and down outside my hotel looking for me. They considered going in and asking reception but only knew my first name and decided that was not enough to go on when asking.

What lovely girls they were, I hope we meet up again one day.

I wish they had have come in because I was in the hotel bar, this is the story :-

I arrived back at my hotel fully intending to go to bed but as I walked through the foyer I heard music coming from the bar so I stuck my head around the door. There was about twelve people sitting at the bar some with guitars, it looked like a private party. I was about to turn around when I heard somebody say come and join us, This turned out to be a local musician called Ray. The Bar manager named Bethany also encouraged me to join them so I thought it rude not to so I sat at the bar and ordered a drink.

It turned out they were all local songwriters who meet there and play there new songs to each other, they were of varying ages from late thirties upwards but all so friendly.

I had been there a few minutes listening to their songs when all of a sudden I realised sitting next to me was a person that looked totally out of place. There was this girl dressed in white, for a moment I thought I had gone to heaven, was it an angel ? This girl was young so pretty, as close as it gets to perfection I couldn't believe she was there.

I soon got talking to her and it turned out her father was a songwriter and they had moved from St Louis only 3 weeks earlier. She was called Lindsey, 24 years old, looked younger, she was really nice so we talked, I was interested in St Louis as I am going there on my next vacation.

We talked a long time, she showed me her tatoos (all three), listened to the musicians and time just flew by. I eventually called it a day and got back to my room just before 4am, I didn't make my free complimentry hotel breakfast the following morning. This was typical of Nashville, I didn't make breakfast the next two mornings either.

So much for a quiet night, Welcome to Nashville, Great people.

Photos :- 1. Amanda & Holly 2. Holly with me 3. Amanda with me 4. Ray 5. Some Musicians 6. More Musicians 7. An angel (sorry Lindsey) with me looking drunk (it must of been bad light).

Day 5 (story 2) - Later that night (the other Girl)

Following my dinner with Regina reported on my previous post we went our seperate ways just before 9pm. I caught the sub way south and got off at Grand station, I was going to go to my favorite Pub "Fado" for a few beers when I remembered I had been given a couple of free passes for Andy's Jazz Club earlier in the week, so it was there I ended up.

On arriving in the Club I spotted a spare stool at the bar so sat down and ordered a drink. I then looked who was next to me and on my immediate right was a lady who I assumed was with the man at the other side of her.

Eventually the man left and I realised she was on her own so I started to chat with her. Her name was Pamela and she was from Washington but in Chicago for a convention. We carried on talking initially about music and it soon became obvious we liked a lot of the same stuff.

The conversation moved on to travel and meeting different people from different cultures, again we just seemed to like doing the same things, it was unreal. We even talked about sport and she told me she always wanted to go to an English soccer match (a little persuasion and I think I convinced her it should be Leeds utd).

We carried talking all night, she was going to leave at 11pm as she had to be up early but to my delight she decided to stop later. We carried on talking until the club was closing so we had to leave. In truth we were so involved I can't tell you anything about the music that was playing.

Before this we swapped information, I gave her my blog address (you never know) while she gave me her e'mail. We also had our photo took but again I never got her permission to put it on this blog so I won't.

We walked the same direction continuing our conversation until we reached my sub way station, I asked her how far it was to her Hotel she said two blocks. I offered to walk her there which she accepted, on route I remember her telling me her mother would be pleased somebody was seeing her safely to her Hotel, I thought that was so sweet.

With our talking we walked past her turn off and did an extra block, I was quite pleased with this as it allowed me another 5 minutes in her company, I could have talked all night.

When we eventually got to her Hotel we shook hands and said goodbye, I turned to walk away but turned back and kissed her on the cheek. We talked further and I asked her if she would like to meet up the following night as it was my last in Chicago, she replied she would love to but had a work commitment with her boss.
She then said she would try her best to get out of this other commitment but was doubtful, she suggested we swapped mobile phone numbers just in case. I explained that was a waste of time because mine doesn't work in the US (I hate the O2 network). So we provisionally agreed to meet in Fado (see photo) at 6.30pm the following evening, I said I would be there, she said she would try her best but wasn't optimistic.

We went our seperate ways but I knew I really liked this lady.

The following night I turned up in the hope she would but was left dissapointed. After a meal I ended up going to the 2nd Blue Chicago venue and knocked some froth off a few beers and suffered from depression.

Since I have got home I have sent an e'mail thanking her for her company but as yet I have heard nothing back. I really do want to meet her again one day.