Matt’s Journal

My parents owe me..

Posted by Matt under Angry, General, Work

My parents had gone to France to see out the sale of our apartment in the alps. I had taken them to the aiport last Thursday, leaing at 4am so they could get there in time for their 7am flight. The journey was pretty easy both ways and I made it home quicker than expected.

The pickup however was a different story.

On the monday night, I had to be at Stansted Airport at midnight to pick them up. I arrived about ten minutes to the hour, parked the car and then went into the terminal to meet them. The drive up there was pretty annoying because there was (surprise, surprise) thick fog covering the whole of the south of England. I had driven slowly and surely making sure to take the correct turnings when needed.

OK, back to the airport. Inside the airport I walk over to one of the screens. It notifies me that their flight from Turin will be landing in 5 minutes, I think thats fine and sit down for them to touch down, grab their baggage and then meet me. I look over at the screens again and notice that some of the other flights are being delayed and some even diverted. Slowly the more recent flights start showing up as diverted, diverted to other airports. A man walks up beside me and tells the people around me that he has just been told that the runway has been closed and that all flights will be diverted elsewhere, what do you know….the flight from Turin has been diverted to Gatwick Airport…..what…the….fuck.

I start to worry about what to do, obviously I cant phone them because they are still in the air. I decide the best course of action is to return to the car and wait there, that way I can be prepared for a quick getaway. The problem with this was that I had only passed my driving test three weeks previous and didnt have a clue in what direction Gatwick actually was, otherwise I would have jumped straight in the car and dashed to pick them up.

After getting into the car, the phone rings, it’s my stepdad. He tells me that they have been diverted blah blah blah and asks me what I would like to do. He says I can either go home and they will make their own way home or I can drive over to Gatwick and pick them up. I decide that I want to pick them up, my stepdad tells me loose directions and I get on my way.

Half of the journey to Gatwick was fine, I am familiar with the M25 and I am able to navigate my way to the Dartford Crossing (crosses the River Thames for non-Brits) without a problem. However due to the heavy fog, the other side was quite a different story. Not knowing my way after the crossing I am looking out for signs for the M23, this will take me to Gatwick and the end of my journey.

As I am driving on the motorway looking for this turn-off I see that the road splits into two separate junctions, I have to make a split-second decision due to the speed the sign comes up and the impossibility of seeing the sign until its right on top of me, I dive right and hope it’s the right decision. I decide that it isnt and I turn off the first road I can find so I can come back the other side and then try again. This road however isnt a normal road, it merges with the M20, I end up driving for 25 miles until I find a junction to turn round in. There are no signs for the return to that motorway so it takes me yet another 20 minutes to find my way back to the M20 and then onto the M25 again.

I get back to the Dartford Crossing and turn round to start the second half of the journey again. What do you know? I made the correct decision the first time but didnt think to stay on the road and see where it went, I should have stayed on instead of trying to turn round at the M20.

I know this is getting long so I will summarise the last part as best as I can.

I find the M23, the fog is thick but I manage to find Gatwick. I pull up at the pickup point and call my parents to see where they are. I am informed they still havent gotten their baggage and that it shouldnt be much longer. I then wait another 3 hours in the pickup point as my parents battle to find their luggage, it turns out that the airline have lost the baggage and are trying to find it. They feed the usual bullshit like “Maybe they werent loaded at Turin”, “Perhaps they are still on the plane” and “Some other airline may have them.” - All these still dont bring the bags out do they?!

It hits 5.00am and the bags are found, where were they? On the plane still. The airline are c**ts of the highest order. I then have to direct my parents to where I am parked and get an irate earful because I didnt park in the right place (even though I told them 5 times where I was when they asked beforehand).

My stepdad drives home and we get in for 6am. I have 2 hours sleep and then goto work. I was like a zombie for the first half of the day and my boss allows me to go home. I sleep from 2pm until 9pm, wake up for a couple of hours and then return to bed at 11pm, trying to fall asleep again. That proves difficult as my parents manage to invite the neighbours in for a drink and I have to hear every word they say due to the openness of my house.

So, as you can tell, I wasn’t a happy camper.

Here are some pictures of what my journey was like:

Its been a long time

Posted by Matt under General

Looking back, I have actually managed to keep this badboy running, not that many people read it mind you.

Anyways, it’s been a busy week for me. I have been upto Cardiff, to Birmingham, had a day off work ill and managed to kill myself whilst working out at the gym. Cardiff was great, I was up there to celebrate my friend from uni’s birthday. I was fortunate enough to grab a lift with another friend and we stopped over at his parents on the way to Wales. Some of the journey photos can be found below:

Once in Cardiff, we spent the Friday night in a few pubs in Caerphilly, assessing the locals and generally catching up. It was a light night for us in preparation for Saturday night.

Saturday day we ventured into Cardiff city centre in the pursuit of some culture and do to a spot of shopping (plus we had only seen it whilst drunk on nights out). The centre itself was really busy, we saw the castle and went upto the Millenium Stadium. The shopping there was really good, it’s a shame we didnt have much time (and people were moaning) otherwise I could have spent a lot of time and money in that place.

We got home and had a lovely meal cooked by Richard’s mum, it was massive but we saw it as the alcohol sponge for our stomach’s that would stop us getting too drunk.

That evening, after a short train journey into the city, we hit a place called HaHa’s, that was pretty neat. We all ordered some variation of JD and coke and managed to secure a nice spot by the door where it was cooler as it was like a sauna inside the place. After downing them far too quickly, we ventured off to the local Varisty where they blasted the Baywatch theme tune and the American Wedding dance off at as at about 130db.

After that was Walkabout, an Australian themed bar that is famous for it’s Snakebite Black (Lager, Cider and Blackcurrant). Cue lots of dancing, hitting on fit women and general malarkey (notice how I am not in many of these pictures whatsoever?!).

We ended up in a superclub place, danced on lots of glass and lost lots of body fluid (sweat that is!).

The next day, we drove up to Birmingham, I was knackered. Due to the lack of sleep I ended up taking a day off on thursday and just sleeping the whole day, it was awesome.

If you havent been to Cardiff, go.

Lucid Decapitation!

Posted by Matt under General

For thousands of years, the forceful removal of the human head has been used as a form of capital punishment. In fact, the word “capital” in the context of punishment was coined to describe execution by decapitation, derived from the Latin word caput, which means “head.” Since the very beginnings of the practice, there has been much speculation and debate regarding the length of time that the head can remain conscious after its removal. Many argue that a beheaded person will almost instantly lose consciousness due to a massive drop in blood pressure in the brain, and/or the heavy impact of the decapitation device. But there are countless eyewitness reports in history describing a few moments of apparent awareness in the victim.

It reads later in the article that a man was beheaded in a car accident:

My friend’s head came to rest face up, and (from my angle) upside-down. As I watched, his mouth opened and closed no less than two times. The facial expressions he displayed were first of shock or confusion, followed by terror or grief. I cannot exaggerate and say that he was looking all around, but he did display ocular movement in that his eyes moved from me, to his body, and back to me. He had direct eye contact with me when his eyes took on a hazy, absent expression . . . and he was dead.

Is it weird to find this interesting?!

The last game of the season.

Posted by Matt under General

Yesterday was the last game of our Sunday League season. It was a top of the table clash, a Chelsea vs Liverpool match of sorts. We were lying in 4th position at the start of the match and the opposition needed to win to ensure they got promoted as champions.

Before the game we are aware that we would be without our striker and our centre midfielder. This meant that a player from another team would be drafted in and we would have to balance the team out by playing players in different positions than they were used to. This player happened to be me!

I was taken outside of the dressing room by the manager so he could have a private word with me. He instructed me that I would be playing up front as a striker and that he wanted me to play through the middle as much as possible and challenge for every ball in the air.

Kicking off, we have a shaky start but manage to get into a calm playing style, the team seem genuinely up for the game and myself and Craig (the other attacker) link up well in the early stages. Then comes the breakthrough, Craig manages to slide the ball past the keeper and get a cross in, I am on the end of it and manage to score my first goal of the season! Cue over the top celebrations and disbelief in our supporters!

Ten minutes later, the ball is crossed in and I flick it on, which again is played back into the box where yours truly is standing back post! WHAM! A header and its 2-0! Cue a scrappy end to the first half.

In the second half, I manged to keep the defenders on their toes, even though I was a full two inches shorter than the bloke marking me, I managed to win 90% of the headers I challenged for. We pulled fouls from them and we managed to defend solidly for the whole 90 minutes.

With 10 minutes to go, our centre defender pulls a hamstring and I have to go back into defense and play the rest of the game there, I get a good few headers in and we finish the game two goals up. What a lovely end to a good day.

Well chuffed.

The gym

Posted by Matt under General

Last Saturday I joined the gym, I can honestly say its probably one of the best uses of my wage I have spent in a long time. Not only do I get to get fit, I am able to look apon many’a fit woman, enjoy a nice swim and my favourite part……the spa area.

I do an hour and a half cardio on a monday, the same amount of time on weights on the tuesday and then a bit of both on the thursday. All of these exertions are all ended with about an hour in the spa area which consists of a Solarium, a Sauna, a Steam Room and a jacuzzi. I am telling it is bliss, all the stiffness ebbs away as you just lay there and soak up the relaxed vibe of the place.

I would go 5 days a week if I could, its that nice.

Boot Camp Public Beta - Macs do Windows, too.

Posted by Matt under Tech

More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.

As elegant as it gets

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.⁽¹⁾ Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don’t have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.

Run XP natively

Once you’ve completed Boot Camp, simply hold down the option key at startup to choose between Mac OS X and Windows. (That’s the “alt” key for you longtime Windows users.) After starting up, your Mac runs Windows completely natively. Simply restart to come back to Mac.

Wow, just wow. I think this is an awesome move on Apple’s part. Now that Mac’s can run XP, I think some hardcore tech guys out there may want to move over. OS X’s aesthetics are beautiful, the design is sleek and the architecture secure, why not have a look?

It doesnt allow you to run OS X if you run Windows XP but vice versa, so dont go downloading if you already run XP.

Well done Apple, its a bold move when you see if also profits Mircosoft.