And now for something very Scottish.

Ok, long time.

Well, dunno who checks anymore but I'm gonna blog again a bit.

Life here's been swell. Handed in the thesis, did very well at HW and will be continuing on with a PhD in about another month or so. Me and Sharon have been living together here at our Dalry road flat since September and all's been well. :-)

One little hitch in the past couple months was being jumped by 6 guys here in Edinburgh. Had a friend here from Mississauga and another friend from the Czech Republic here when it happened. Needless to say it was not a fair fight. Anyhow we're all well, just a few cuts, scrapes and bruises.

Since I last left a message here I've been to the Czech Republic (Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Dacice, Trebon, Telc and Mokra-Horakov), Slovakia (Poprad and Kosice) and went down to Bournemouth (in Devon, so south English coast) to visit some of Sharon's family too. So despite being out of school and not working at the moment I have been up to stuff. I'm also taking a wood carving class, which I have to say is definitely a lot of fun; I'm making a duck. :-)

I'll post pics from the trips below. Videos will get uploaded a little later, maybe with luck today.

Alrighty, I will now find pictures to share. Ok... blogger refused my pics there. I will try a video from Lomnicky stit in Poprad, Slovakia. (stit means peak in Slovak, we were on Lomnicky mountain, and later the peak.)



Delicious Slovak hot chocolate. No, not a rarity at a lovely mountain resort but rather the Slovak version of a drink I don't often have. Very thick, like Magic Moments TM chocolate pudding heated to 45C. Have a look.

Ooooo, you know those road-side Jesus temple thingies you see on Quebec highways? Even highway 6 has one on the way to Tobermory. Well, not much to our surprise, it seems almost everybody in the Czech and Slovak republics has decided they MUST have AT LEAST one on their property. Here is just one of the several million we must have seen between Cesky Krumlov and Mokra-Horakov.





Ok, gonna try pics again, this time just two. First is a view of Prague Castle (Hrad Cany, pronounced chany) and the second is from Poprad in Slovakia.
















Cool, may post more pics from this trip and maybe some from our visit to the New Forest in Dorset later. I have pictures of a wizard. I KNOW you're all excited!

Cool, take care for the moment,

Dave

NIN and Foo Fighters in Edinburgh!

Hey there,

Saw NIN and the Foo Fighters last night and it was fucking great! :)

Pics and video for ya. Sound is shit in the videos but what the hell, here they are anyways.

Pics first:


The crowd.














Trent Reznor with guitar.














Trent Reznor singing with his laptop.











Now for videos. The NIN ones are 'bouncy' to say the least, I was up front in the pit. The Foo Fighters one is a bit more interesting, I added commentary to it so check it out. ;)

Spiegel Tent

It rained all day yesterday, really hard most of the time. Oh well, why should that stop us drinking?





Don't know why the sound didn't work but here is my buddy Scott's gig in the Meadows as a part of the Fringe Festival. His band is Jaded Playboy, they're on My Space if you're curious.



Here's Scott signing his first autograph. Awwww..... :)

Anyhow, waiting for my bike to arrive, looking forward to riding again......... been forever! Need to get on a bike again!

Living in the new flat too, got lots of space for guests too. Take that as an invite folks. ;)

I gotta go. I will blog more in the future. OOOOOOOOooooooooooooo.............. new mobile number here, new address too.

Mobile: (to call from Canada) 011-44-788-312-1704.


Address: if you need it email or call me. :)

Later!

Dave

Entry 67

Hallooooo.

Been busy, busy, busy with the thesis. Trial and error learning is FUCKING slow.

Oh well, only one day was shit so far. This week and next week until Tuesday are looooooong...... 10-11 hour days. But alas, some people do that everyday.

Pretty much got a flat lined up for me and Sharon too; today went well for me. :)


More on that some other time...


Alrighty, I should work more now. Gotta be productive!

Later,

Dave

Flats, mice & my thesis.

Flat hunting has been interesting so far... apparently I'm too prepared. Nobody here looks more than 1 month in advance generally and that means there's not so much available for late August/early September... yet. Still, if you look hard enough you seem to find them. I do owe the Student Welfare office at HWU a big thank you; they seem to be the only reliable place you can find private lets for the time period we're gonna need.

Stupid letting companies will want 6 months rent up front because me and Sharon wont be working when we move in AND we won't have a UK resident as a guarantor. Buggers...

We do have a mouse... not that I've seen it, just found poop so far. Also makes me wonder if it's the reason for the funny sour milk smell near the fridges... that could be sour milk though. I've vacuumed, swept out all around (inc behind) the fridges/freezer, no luck, still a smell. Oh well, gonna starve the mouse away, that's my plan, Tom's gone at the moment, which means a clean kitchen, and I hope the mouse gets the message. I am not leaving it a single crumb to munch on so I hope it decides to find greener pastures soon.

And the thesis, my life for the last three weeks. It's been getting along well, well enough to see all the problems that are gonna arise. Not gonna go into that, I could write you a 5000 word report on that before I knew I had.

I hope all's well.

Ooo, and if you want a custom T-shirt from Portugal (or maybe Brazil, I didn't see where) check the comments on my last blog. ;)

Dave

How does this work?

Look at the picture (NOT YET THOUGH!), it was taken here in Edinburgh.

This is like one of those kid's games you get on a place mat at somewhere like Pizza Hut. So, basically look at the picture and find what doesn't belong.
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V

Do you see it? I hope you do. A palm tree. You don't see these here, ever, I thought.

Anyways, here are a couple other little piccies I tool from Blackford Hill here in Edinburgh last weekend. I hope you like them. ;)































Dave

Flat hunting, mice, Billy Talent and (almost) a straight week of drinking

Hello, been a fun week.

Finished exams last Friday, went out caught some belly dancing at Octopus Diamond, then we narrowly avoided a fight with a stupified fella after the bar closed. Saturday was Scott's gig at Bannerman's in Cowgate, that was a blast, great location, awesome sound and fuck, Scott's getting good, was a great show. :)

Sunday we headed to Oni's, had a few beers, just chilled. A nice counter-point to the previous couple nights. Then Monday was Olga & Lenka's goodbye party for Tyler. Mmmmmm goulash and slivovitz. Took Tuesday and Wednesday nights off, worked on the thesis (it's going somewhere finally!) and got ready for Billy Talent.

Thursday was BT night at the liquid rooms, got prepped up with Scott, Ysella and the boys from Scott's band in Grassmarket. I figured I'd have a pint before the show... he he, 5 pints and a whisky later we were off to see BT. Nice show, really beena while since I managed to get front row at a show like that. Was wicked! Odd too, I had 10 years on nearly everyone in the audience... well, so did everyone I was there with too. :)

Last night was the last Whisky Soc for the year... ok, they start again in October, so not that long. Anyways, we had 4 bottles between the 10 of us, 1 40 year old, a cask strength (~62.5%) from somewhere in Speyside, god knows which distillery it was. Sweet stuff these two were. Never got the others open, Andy, the Whisky Soc president made the night free but after going over-time by 1 & 1/2 hours, felt opening them was better another time. After that we headed to Huw's for a kegger. One of the other 4th year's'd, Matt, had just got a job and his brewery sent him up a keg from Glasgow to celebrate. They also managed to score anther keg from the Caley, personal connections of some kind.

Also, at Huw's, one of the 4th year's, Scott (different guy) and I got to talking and he said he'd done an exchange during high school and stayed in Oakville. Random. He's even got an OT rugby jersey. Go figure, small world, eh?

Ummm... yeah, looking into other flats now too, getting all excited! Checking into Polwarth and Merchiston, both on my bus route and even closer to town. Better shops around too. Also, apparently we've got a mouse in the house! Fun shit. Oh well, I haven't seen it, probably never will but Tom ( the new guy here) said he was gonna buy some traps.

Well... I want to look online at flats. I hope you're all having a nice warm weekend wherever you are. ;)

Bye.

Dave

Ok, also, I WILL BE IN OAKVILLE this JULY 17th to the 1st of AUGUST. I know everybody's gonna be fighting to spend every minute they can with me so I thought I'd let you all know in advance. :P

But anyways, I'll call people when I get back or maybe if I get to it email??? I don't know who checks email, or if I have the right ones anymore... I'll put something on Facebook and there's this now. Oooo, I'm thinking maybe a weekend in Collingwood?

Perhaps the 27th, 28th, 29th?

We'll see, no idea what'll actually happen once I'm back on hopefully familiar Canadian-soil.

Later!

Dave