How dizzy?

Back at work today and felt mighty, mighty dizzy. Its like having spent a good afternoon drinking and getting that constant whirry head spin without any of the other bits of being drunk. Not so much fun - especially since my medication means I cannot drink. I want a beer!

Newcastle United. They're a bit rubbish really, yet they are my team. It seems to me they've picked up a manager who is tactically naive in the extreme in what is actually a rapidly increasingly technical, tactical league. My target this year - to stay up! 6 point gap at the moment, more worrying than it should be. You'd think we've enough quality to stay up, but we are so poor on a performance level that I really, really worry! Is Super Kev super enough?

Poor abandoned blog

I feel like I'm cutting the long grass with a strimmer this blog is so abandoned!

What's new pussycat?

I've been ill. For a month. Yes a month. Man I was bored. I am now somewhat recovered and back to work in the morning which will be great. So hopefully be back in the land of the living soon.

I'll try to get the blog going a little more. A slight Facebook fascination put nails in the blog coffin, but I think i prefer the blog format. So here I am.

Very edited highlights:

'flu
Still dating Cat
Still a Civil Engineer
Still Living in Heswall
Still doing lots of church stuff.

Anyway, welcome back!

July, the new November

I've been on Holiday! Not just from this woefully out of date blog, but in real life. I spent last week in Cornwall, trying to climb. I managed to get up 2 routes in 5 days spending only 1 day climbing. It was a week of showers at low tide and sun battling behind the clouds at high tide. Except for Wednesday which was GLORIOUS sunshine whilst I was driving and then high tide when we got where we were trying to climb.
Still its always good to have time off and relax. I filled my time going to places with good sea cliffs, eating pasties, buying cider and reading. I read "The Year of Our War" by Steph Swainston. I got it in pack of prize winning books from the bookpeople (v. cheap books!). It was such a pleasure to actually spend some time reading, for some reason I never seem to get around to it very much despite how much I love doing it! Anywho, its a fantasy book which has a great start and then totally runs out of steam at the end, trying to cram too much plot in too little space.
I also went to see Rufus Wainwright at the Eden Sessions. Rufus was very good playing lots of his new album, which is not so good but does work live. Hot Chip provided an hour long support set, which was a little bit dull. They suffer very much from being four men, standing in a line, playing keyboards, producing music that should be made by one man and a computer in his bedroom. I'll try to get pictures of the awesome Eden centre up somewhere, so look out on farcebook or on flickr.
Back to work on Monday, whenever that is, talking at EP tonight on "God's authority" which should be interesting. Its about a 20 min talk in my head and needs to be less than 10 mins. Time for a severe edit!

Water Water Everywhere but not a drop to drink!

Hey y'all,
Heswall has no water, well my house doesn't anyway! A big pipe has burst washing lots of sand into the road by Heswall Primary School and now I have no water. My folks do, so they're feeding me. Showering is the next challenge, have no idea if I'll have water or not. Guess we'll find out in the morning at work!
In other news, I've been ill again, same old viral rubbish which keeps taking me down. Very tired, felt rubbish, so missed two days at work, the whole weekend and ran a temperature for 5.5 days, which is a bad idea. Went back to work today, felt PAP all morning but starting picking up this afternoon thanks to the marvels of paracetamol. Whoop!
Imogen Heap's debut album has arrived, first listen to the first couple of tracks seems ok, definate whiff of Alanyis Morrissette involved, but need to hear more first.
Please take time to go listen to my song, would mostly enjoy your opinion of it, follow the link to the right labelled "My Oh Myspace" then go listen to "There is A Redeemer" at the bottom of the list.
Take much care,
Stino
xx

There Is A Redeemer...

Had a FAB weekend over the bank holiday. Went to vist my big bro with my mum and Dad which was great. Had the chance to chill so I did things I love. I read "Sex God" by Rob "Nooma" Bell. Its very good on the relationships with people stuff and EXCELLENT on the relationship with God stuff.
I also had the chance to play with my toys, and have recorded a new demo for y'all. Its a rewritten version of "There is a Redeemer" by Melody Green. I rewrote the tune to use at church, where it works pretty well. So its in a more modern context. I've flung it on my myspace site.
This song was brought to you buy:
Boss Micro BR Digitial "4" Track (you layer things to get more depth!)
A Korg N5 for the Bass
A Takemine Electro-Acoustic Guitar
A De Armmond Electric Guitar (think that's right, its my bro...) through the Boss's effects
A Kemble Silent Piano (The BEST lazy way to record a Piano, just expensive...its my bro's too!)
My Voice - through the Boss's internal Mic...
Would be delighted to hear your comments!
Peace Out

Cup final, Quinta and generally feeling rubbish

A stream of thoughts in no particular order...
Wembley looked a fantastic stadium, but one thing hasn't changed. With the odd exception (like last year) cup finals are often very poor games of football. TODAY WAS TERRIBLE!! As I said to my Man U supporting friend, it was a game neither team deserved to win. Eesh. I wrote the majority of tomorrow's sermon for EP during the game. RUBBISH. However at least its over. Can Liverpool produce a better Champions League Final? We can but hope.
Big Sam for Newcastle? Think that's probably a good thing, but I would expect some casualties amongst the players, we need a good clear out, and some heads banging together. If Big Sam wants to prove he is a managerial genius, he could turn Bramble into a defender and Luque into an striker! Think its gonna take some time!
Quinta. Was very, very very hard work but really amazing. Steve Beal (Heswall's youth worker) and I put together four services including lots of visuals (think spiritual music videos...to Snow Patrol, Prodigy and other such bands...) across the weekend. It was incredible, God really showed up and I hope and pray the 162 people shoe horned into the venue left having met God. I know I did - Brilliant.
The past week has been less good, I have been off work for three days and feeling generally under the weather. Some nasty viral thing which has really knocked me for 6. I have slept and sat. Most rubbish! I am a very poor invalid as I get hugely frustrated. Going from doing everything all the time, to nothing is too much for me to cope with. Its like a drug addict going cold turkey! However, I think I've turned the corner and should be back at work on Monday - Hoorah!
Anyway, sleep will probably help sort me out, so should really do that. Hope you're all well, and life is treating you nicely.
Love and blessings
Stino

Manager wanted

Roeder has gone! Newcastle are once more a ship without a captain. We seem to change managers as often as some most teams change their shirts!
I think Roeder was a little unfortunate, he suffered an horrific injury crisis through the year and wasn't really able to field a side consistently. That said, they never played well and he didn't sign a defender. HINT: Defenders are as important as attackers in the general scheme of things. You need both to be successful.
I'll be happy if Big Sam takes the reins, would be nice to have a manager one can trust. So, let this season be forgotten and roll on 07/08.
A