i’m still here

Hullo people, its been a while and certainly longer than can be excused, I apologise.

Things have ground to a halt in a number of areas in my life. I shall elaborate soon, The end of the year is drawing closer and it seems that a lot of things are in hiatus till the New Year emerges..

My Florida/East Coast trip long since ended last month and I have several entries to catch up on to bring the story to its conclusion. I promise those will be forth-coming..

So hang on folks, lots of ups, downs, backs and forwards as well as sideways to be documented here very soon…

Nabbing My Wii

Hurrah, I got one! Indeed, I was there at Times Square NYC taking in the atmosphere and also getting to grips with navigating around the city blocks. When I gave it some thought, the grid layout was actually pretty convenient, so long as you knew the two intersecting streets, you could locate any place in the city.

Osa had met me at Penn Station because she was coming from her other house in Long Island. We walked down to Times Square which is just a few blocks from the Station and my first Wii sighting was this:

Times Square Will Toys R Us 

Wii at Toys R Us at Times Square

Couldn’t miss that eh? This was the Continue reading

Nintendo Wii Midnight Launch, Times Square NYC, Nov 19th. Geeky gamer time again!

Indeedy, my travel adventures have been coming thick and fast, in fact it’s been a struggle to keep up-to-date on the blog. Too much happens in too short a time period. I’m constantly playing catch up but I hope to manage it.

I’ve gotten myself to Washington DC and will be going to NYC again tomorrow. There shall be more posts shortly to fill in the Florida gaps but I thought I would make a different type of post today.

One of my interests has always been computer gaming and this weekend sees the launch of two new next-generation consoles. The Playstation 3 and my personal favourite the Nintendo Wii.

Nintendo Wii

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.. (do I have to grow up just yet?)

Since I will be in New York tomorrow, I’m going to go attend the big launch party at Toys ‘R Us, Times Square NYC. There will be acrobats, live music, pyrotechnics and more. It is said that Reggie Fils-Aime, the funny looking/acting chief marketing officer of Nintendo,will be there to hand out the first Wiis to the lucky gaming public.

Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo

Reggie of Ninty!

I’m gonna go along, snap some photos and take in the atmosphere for the night. I might even snap up a Wii if there will be enough to go around.

So, check back soon when I will post up my experiences and shots from the event. Should be fun!

Florida Trip Pt II (Savannah, Pt ii – fledgling family fun)

thefamily

Meet Alex, Kate and little Eloise. Our new bouncy, bubbling fun family.

They were my very kind and generous hosts for a whole week. I had a lot of fun with them and not necessarily related to getting to see Savannah for I was there to get to know Alex’s new wife and baby daughter!

Alex who I met at my first year at Teesside doing Computer Animation had decided he didn’t like the course in England and chose to go to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) instead to do Illustration. The SCAD workload is really quite something, whereas in Teesside we had all semester to complete about 5-7 projects to do from our 5 modules, at SCAD it was more like 2 projects every week, yes they were smaller projects but they still required many hours a day to finish them in time before you get the next project. No slacking here!

Alex certainly stuck to this regime and would for most of the day be at his desk drawing. Therefore I left him alone for most of my stay and hung out with Kate and Eloise.

We took some walks around the local neighbourhood of Savannah which was very pleasant.

The Architecture of Savannah

Some example Savannah Architecture

There were some walks in the park, the weather was fantastic, it still shocked me not having to wear anything more than a T-shirt, in November! (I’m sure I’m repeating myself there).

Savannah, a park fountain and me

I admire a fountain in the Park

This park fountain has been the setting of quite a few scenes in movies. I’m sure it gets a lot of use from the SCAD film students too.

Kate pushed Eloise in a pram as we prowled the rather scenic streets of Savannah. Eloise isn’t quite yet 1 yet at 10 months but she babbled away happily for much of the time, I wandered what she was trying to say or convey.

Kate is a lot of fun to be with, she’s a pretty young girl and has a great smile. She’s one of those fashion fiends and quite conscious of her self-image. She needn’t worry about such things so much for her image was fine and people look for more than that in friends and close loved ones. 😀

It amused me when she asked if her hair was alright when we sat waiting outside a SCAD building for Alex to finish his class. Kate apologised for asking when I told her that she looked perfect, Kate turned out to be the most apologetic person I’ve ever met, she says sorry to just about everything. Despite my chiding that she needn’t apologise so much to me, she apologised about the apologising and then I new this to be a lost cause! Hehe. I love peoples quirky character traits.

In front of me there was a statement scrawled on the back of a signpost.

My motto scrawled on a Savannah signpost

A message on the sign-post

I pointed out to Kate that the message has been my own personal motto for a long time now. She chuckled and tended to Eloises’ gurgles. I wondered what kind of person would feel so inclined to spread our motto there.

Alex emerged after a while with some friends, one of whom was a neighbour from across the street. A lot of students were living on the same road even though the SCAD campus is very dispersed.

SCAD friends on campus

SCAD friends on campus, the Wilsons on the right.

Much of my time was spent… Continue reading

Florida Trip Pt. II (Savannah, Pt i – Amtraking)

P.S

I am writing more entries on my laptop than what you see on the site here, but having trouble uploading them… stay with me folks, a lot of cool stuff coming your way as soon as I can muster it all.

P.P.S

Am I allowed to put a P.S before a post? Shouldn’t it be B.S? Would people take offence at that? Pr.S? P.P.S?? Ooooh the acronymage.

P.P.S.S

Crazy Sam & Max

Hi friends,

So, what happened after I tried to get some shut eye in New York City Penn Station?

Well I managed about 3 hours of snoozing and awoke with time to spare before my train was due. Got a fruit smoothie to wake me up (almost as good as coffee but nicer) and also decided to purchase a couple books to read since I had a 14 hour journey ahead of me.

Train arrived on time and left about 5 minutes later with me settled on-board.

I attempted to catch up some more on lost sleep and dozed on and off through out the journey. When I awoke hungry, I ate the sandwhich and snacks that I had purchased at the same time as fruit smoothieness. Read quite far into my first book which, set in the near future, was about an autistic man who has been offered a treatment for his condition but it may change the very essence of who he is.. should he go for it?

Pretty good book, nothing fanciful in the language or narration but there is a bit of drama to keep things chugging along. A pretty good insight into what it must be like to be autistic, I’m always interested to see how other people cope with their own disabilities. The book is called “The Speed of Dark ” by Elizabeth Moon.

The Amtrak train took a long time.. however I enjoyed watching the scenery change. Whenever I awoke from a doze, the light had changed, the foliage had changed colour and the types of environment we passed was always shifting.

As we hit South Carolina and eventually Georgia, suddenly lush green junglelike shrubbery was everywhere and white sand, palm trees! My gosh, how dramatic the change, and yet it’s the same country, just passing along the East Coast..

The train was over 2 hours late in the end. It rolled into Savannah station close to 11pm, I had been sat in the same seat for 16 hours.. I stepped out into the warm evening and stretched my legs.

Concerned that my hosts were worried, I made for a payphone but was interrupted by an older black dude asking I needed a taxi, yes I decided, unsure if it was worth walking the indicated (on my GPS PDA navigation set-up) 3 miles at night.

Black dude drove me faithfully to the address I had been given and as I got my bags out, my friend from my fresher years at Teesside University stood waiting on the porch.

I felt tired and happy.

Florida Pt (I of too many?!)

To elaborate, the reason for my severe delay in finishing the rest of the Montreal blog postings can be attributed to the frantic headrush of the past 2 weeks that have seen me tackling the huge logistics of an extended Florida trip.

If you can recall, I have been asked to pick up a van for a company and drive it back some 1500 miles to Vermont. I have decided to go ahead with this because I would be paid for my time, have the travel costs covered, get an opportunity to do some real-life US State-wide driving and also visit a large number of friends, family or relatives.

In order to visit relatives in a timely manner, I requested if I could get a paid Amtrak rail pass to chuff along the East Coast and make stop overs to visit people possible. Luckily the company agreed.

The huge logistics problem came about when I realised that I would have the mammoth task of coordinating a rally of visits with about 25-30 odd people that I have addresses and invitations for all the way down to Florida. I would need to schedule a day or two for each person and work out which Amtrak station is closest and if I need a Greyhound from there or not. Then I would need to check which days were suitable with everyone and make sure that it all lined up with the minimum of ‘backtracking’ up the railways.

Whew.

I think I’ve pretty much accomplished a good array of dates all one after the other which succeed their way down the East Coast.

My plans are:

WAY DOWN (Amtrak Train & Greyhound Bus)

Vermont – A ride down with my host Chuck as he had to go to NYC anyway

New York – Visit a friend of my mothers living on Mulberry Street, China Town in Manhattan.

South Carolina – My distant cousin who lives in UK but has a work placement for a year in the US

Savannah – My old hall mate from the first year at University who went to the States to do a different course

Florida – Visit a large number of relatives who have settled up and down the length of Florida

PICK UP VAN, DRIVE BACK UP

Stop off at any of the above who will be free to have me again

plus

Washington D.C – My cousin who I visited 3 years ago also

New York – My grandparents in Long Island.

Vermont – Drop off van and work out how to get a lift back home!

Thus it commences!

enter-NYC-agull

“Entering NYC”, a gull watches the cars pass under its domain

What happens now?

Continue reading

Montreal Pt II (almost)

Hewwo!

I’m afraid this isn’t quite the next Montreal post because I’m sat here at Penn Station NYC, laptop out typing away at 11:19pm in the Amtrak patron waiting lounge.

For the time being I will put up the rest of the photos I took with the ‘Non-Camera’ and hope to return to elaborate on the whole trip some more in the near future. This will give me a chance to write up the more recent and cruxing developments (see newer posts).

Essentially, I stayed with Michael and his partner Reajanne. They took me out to dinner that first evening but a headache came upon me most viciously and I started to feel queasy eating the posh french food. I had to eventually apologise and leave off eating any of the dinner. Took it home with me in a doggy bag, went straight to bed. Following day I got a chance to look around Montreal as Michael drove me around some. Then I was taken too….

*Enter pictures*

biodome

The Montreal Biodome (zoo) also where the Olympic Stadium resides.

biodome-fishy

Fishies and Gawkers

biodome-birdies

Birdies. (Or rather people watching the birdies). Note the ‘faux sky’, would inspire anyone to go on a humanitarian animal wellfare crusade.

biodome-pengwins

My favourites! The cute penguins!

Then we went to the Chalet also in close proximity to one of Michaels Sons; Shawn who has a nice little family of his own..

myles-at-chalet

Me. ‘Chaleting’

michael&liam

Michael reads a story (in slight monotone) to his Grandson; Liam.

Went back the following day to Montreal where I got to see a nice view that I made into a dodgy panorama.

montrealpanorama

Montreal (can you spot the Biodome/Olympic Stadium?)

Then Michael took me to his other son; Dylan and his partner; Sophia.

sophia-vic-dylan

“Sophia, Vic (a friend of theirs) and Dylan

I liked Dylan, he was on the same wavelength as me and not nessacarily because he owned a hemp shop but he is quite interested in family history like me. That evening we went to a vegatarian restaurant and then a strip club(!), both equally quite new experiences for me.

It was a very short stay, especially with Dylan and Sophia but I have been invited back. I hope to take them up on the offer.

ontheroad-exit

Blitzed back down to Vermont on the Greyhound whereupon I immediately started organising my Florida trip.. So, onto another post then.

 

The reason for my severe delay in finishing the rest of the Montreal blog postings can be attributed to the frantic headrush of the past 2 weeks that have seen me tackling the huge logistics of an extended Florida trip.

If you can recall, I have been asked to pick up a van for a company and drive it back some 1500 miles to Vermont. I have decided to go ahead with this because I would be paid for my time, have the travel costs covered, get an opportunity to do some real-life US State-wide driving and also visit a large number of friends, family or relatives.

In order to visit relatives in a timely manner, I requested if I could get a paid Amtrak rail pass to chuff along the East Coast and make stop overs to visit people possible. Luckily the company agreed.

The huge logistics problem came about when I realised that I would have the mammoth task of coordinating a rally of visits with about 25-30 odd people that I have addresses and invitations for all the way down to Florida. I would need to schedule a day or two for each person and work out which Amtrak station is closest and if I need a Greyhound from there or not. Then I would need to check which days were suitable with everyone and make sure that it all lined up with the minimum of ‘backtracking’ up the railways.

Whew.

I think I’ve pretty much accomplished a good array of dates all one after the other which succeed their way down the East Coast.

My plans are:

WAY DOWN (Amtrak Train & Greyhound Bus)

Vermont – A ride down with my host Chuck as he had to go to NYC anyway

New York – Visit a friend of my mothers living on Mulberry Street, China Town in Manhatten.

South Carolina – My distant cousin who lives in UK but has a work placement for a year in the US

Savannah – My old hallmate from the first year at University who went to the States to do a different course

Florida – Visit a large number of relatives who have settled up and down the length of Florida

PICK UP VAN, DRIVE UP

Stop off at any of the above who will be free to have me again

plus

Washington D.C – My cousin who I visited 3 years ago also

New York – My grandparents in Long Island.

Vermont – Drop off van and work out how to get a lift back home!

Montreal Pt. I

Waking up moderately late at 10:30am to the smell of my father cooking porridge on his single hob I considered it lucky that the coach didn’t get in till 12:05pm but pondered whether it was unlucky that today was Friday 13th, I scrambled from my sleeping bag and my father shared some of the porridge and then boiled some water for me to wash my face with. Aah it was just like camping, but.. not.

T’was was sunny out, I took the opportunity to run across the street to the Chittenden Bank and cash in a check (not cheque) for $50 from the Vermont State, what had happened was that I found an old money order check when clearing out my room back in England. Turned out that since I hadn’t taken it to the bank and forgotten about it, the check had expired back in 2004. Had the forsight to bring it with me to America and luckily was able to fill out a form, get some documents copied and notarized and then send off to reclaim the money from the State. Boring paperworky stuff aye? Took me a couple weeks to sort out but $50 is useful spending money!

Checked in at the Greyhound office to make sure I knew where I had to change (White River Junction) and I would have to get off etc. Then went back to my fathers studio apartment and waited till mid-day.

He had been rummaging around and presented me with an old Canadian $10 note he had left over from his own travels. I gratefully accepted, it would make a useful taxi fare.

Coach was 15 minutes late but it faithfully pulled up right outside, handy to have the coach stop next to my fathers place.. the door opened and I was confronted by a vision of beauty, the young woman locked eyes with me for a moment and then I stepped aside to let her get off, hmmm, I like beautiful people, for me, in women, it’s important to stress that this refers not the usual busty fake plastic stripper types, but the sweet down-to-earth natural beauty, those who you know will make beautiful mothers, if you know what I mean, hard to describe, photographic evidence needed sometime!

Well a nice fleeting moment she was, but I had a country to get to and the coach wasn’t gonna wait around long, threw my luggage under, showed the driver my US passport as ID (would also need it to cross the border) and stepped aboard to make myself comfortable.

A Greyhound Coach!

“A trusty Greyhound coach!”

I settled down opposite a gentleman with streaky shoulder length grey hair, whiskers and brown leather cowboy boots. He kept reaching for a comb in his trouser (pant) pocket and running it a couple times through his hair whilst checking his image reflected in the coach window. Behind me sat an interesting looking girl donning a blue hat and busily staring off into the distance. Aside from a couple of others dotted around, the coach was mostly empty.

I felt tempted to talk a little to my neighbouring journey partners however a burning feeling of calm started pouring back into me as the coach pulled away to begin it’s way along the twisty interstates and freeways. I hadn’t been on my own for a few months what with always staying at peoples places so far, I realised I was momentarily my own person again, independent. Todays journey was a precious time to assimilating my thoughts and placating the stresses of recent.

Thus, I was on my way, in peace.

On the road, I stare from the window

“Thought Mode”.

I zoned out for a little while watching the landscape of Northern Vermont pass by, on the edge of consciousness my mind registered that this really is a beautiful piece of land, a moment later I was briefly interrupted from my daze by the streaky grey haired comb and booted gentleman when he tapped my knee and spoke something to me.

I didn’t catch it but he repeated again and I realised he wanted me to wake him up when we got to ‘White River Junction’,

“Sure thing” said I and the comb and booted gentleman promptly tucked himself into the length of two seats and snoozed.

Booted comb gentleman needed have worried for he awoke when the coach pulled into town and announced we were at White River. I got off for this was my change over also. Only had to wait 20 minutes and the Montreal destined Greyhound pulled in also. This one was much fuller but I still had two seats to myself. I got out a book to read for this leg, Mmmm Sci-Fi.. my favourite. Unfortunately got quite engrossed in the story of advanced civilisations sending a radio signal to Earth from Vega and telling us how to build a machine.. a machine machined from not-yet-discovered fabricating methods of bio-metals and acids. A machine with 5 seats perfectly shaped for humans, should we build the machine? Where should we build it? Who should build it? Who will ride it? How many should be men? How many women? What should the be trained to d….

The coach pulled into border control and the driver instructed that we all had to get off and grab our luggage. Aaaar, what with my brain running amok with interesting futurist icy questions that demanded to be pondered I sort of fumbled my answers to the queries of the immigration border control officers which prompted them to sort through my luggage and be greeted by not very much at all, for I carried little money and had left the laptop at home.

Painlessly, they let this victim of daydreaming into their country and we all piled back aboard the bus.

Book set back on my lap and about to read who got to build the machine, well I didn’t because the new Canadian landscape before me was rather overwhelming. Huge flat plains and farm land extending as far as the eye could see, quaintly small houses (dwarfed by 200 acre back-gardens) dotted the road as we went. Never really seen such obstructed space before, magical stuff. Me-so-small and the rest of it. Photos couldn’t help portray this because there was nothing in field of vision to demonstrate the scale. Might be a way though, shall think about it for the future. At this point I really wised I had more than 8mb to play with on the digital cam of uselessness, at best I would be able to squeeze out 30 or so shots for the whole weekend, gosh it’s just like having to make use of a single roll of film because it was much too expensive to purchase and develop another one, I’m that 9 year old budding photographer all over again.

The sun had set and it was starting to get dark as the coach drove on to one of the bridges that would take us into Montreal, again, again, hugeness and camera pains abound with a vista view of the silvered estuary of be speckled ripples gushing its way to join the Pacific. I stowed away my book and took in the sights until the bus got us to the station.

Montreal has a feel of its own, like Boston was different to New York City, Montreal is different to those, I suspect that this will be a recurring trend to all the cities I goto, most will appear quite similar on the surface but when you’re actually there, the cars, high-rise buildings and people constantly ebbing and flowing from your vision, the subtle differences will seap in at the corners of your imagination and the place stamps upon you a feeling all of its very own. Hard to describe!

I freshened up in the toilets, gave my face a quick wash and pondered how long I had been journeying, about just under 5 hours actually in motion with the odd 90 minutes waiting around. It was just going 6:20pm as I plonked a mapquest print-out of directions in the face of a taxi driver. Took him a moment to get his bearings on the map but shortly we were on our way. For 15 minutes I peered up as far as I could see at the skyscrapers from the backseats and before I knew it, we were already there! The taxi fare was something like $10.11 (Canadian) which seemed to be ironic considering my gift of $10 (Can.) from my father. I gave the taxi driver $15 (US) which he seemed pretty happy with, I guess I’m pretty generous with these things.

Just to confirm I was at the right place, I asked the driver to wait whilst I knocked on the door. I was greeted by a thin, amiable looking fellow donning bouncy tufts of white hair, Prof. Michael Maxwell. I simultaneously shook his hand and gave a thumbs up to the taxi who drove away.

I had arrived at Selkirk Avenue, Montreal PQ.

Montreal Pt. 0

Hullo again,

A 3 part special! Stay tuned, gripping stuff, perhaps.

Well I decided it was time to make a little trip away from Vermont and get away from the hassles and frustrations of things like immoral Russians and futile car hunting.

In the little green book my mother had given me were a list of names and addresses, friends and family from all over who I could potentially get in touch with and visit.

I didn’t want to go too far just yet and so perusing the little green book I settled on Michael Maxwell and his family in Montreal, Canada.

We corresponded by email a couple times and yes he would really like to have me over,

“If you can come up a week Friday then we shall drive you up to our Chalet with us”, gave me a target date to aim for.

The next issue to solve was method of transport. Not yet the proud owner of a set of wheels (and chassis, engine, gear stick, pedals, ooooh a steering wheel, fluffy dice maybe..) it wasn’t quite time to bring into effect the roadtripping and so instead I thought it’d be nice to go up by train. A leisurely pacing, see the landscape and whatnot.

Well that wasn’t to be either, since at a Jazz Jam, connected to a wi-fi hot-spot, I phoned up Amtrak using the TTY (text phone service provided by Nextalk) and was told that in order to get to Montreal from Vermont I would need to get a train down to New York Penn Station and then from there a direct line to Montreal….

WTF?

New York City is like almost exactly the same distance from Vermont as it is from here to Montreal but in entirely the opposite direction.

Fools!

I went to a travel agent the next day and the lady there rather vigorously lamented to me that the Vermonter Train service to Montreal had been dropped with some budget cuts and all the Vermont travel agents were frantically appealing Amtrak to get it back running, I could tell I had hit a touchy subject and I started to fear that this newly agitated lady agent would any moment clasp onto my arm and beg of me to solve the problems, have mercy and get the Vermonter Train back in action.

Well I got away in one piece.

So with the train out of the window, it was down to the faithful Greyhound coach to save me, don’t they spell ‘grey’ ‘gray’ here? Confusing.

I was lucky, I found out I was just in time to take advantage of the special ‘weeks advance’ offer for next Friday and save myself $15, woot. So, with Greyhound Coach ticket proudly in my hand, I ambled away from the Brattleboro office and was all set for Montreal. Interestingly the ticket was the same price if I left from Brattleboro or Bellows Falls, they are a good hours drive apart, I decided to leave from Bellows Falls as my father offered to have me stay the night and then I could catch the coach the following day.

Bellows Falls, this was a mini adventure in itself. Staying over at my fathers place? Howso? Wherefor? Why?

Questions, qwestions, b’huh thems’ imaginary voices sure keep me busy..

The adventure was setting down my packed bags and things, wondering what space I would be able to sleep on, for my fathers abode was a single room above a stationary shop on Bellows Falls high street. Piled high in many places were my fathers possessions and commiserated work places for his art. A tightly compacted maze of clutter in which you’re lucky to find a place to stand, let alone sit, oh and sleep(!), consarn it.

In a way the room and it’s artistic clutter was a direct contrast to the sparseness of Karl and Susans’ place, oh how we suffer.

Well it wasn’t that suffersome really, my father cleared a space on part of the floor by the back window and was able to set out a small air mattress and a borrowed sleeping bag. The evening, I spent delving onto a half hidden Fender Rhodes , caressing dusty keys, the electric piano chimed away in it’s mellow glory whilst I stared absent mindedly at a fuzzy TV public broadcast documentary, visually apparent to be concerned with the recent US voting and polling situation which I couldn’t understand for lack of subtitles. My father emerged from behind another pile and produced a vegetarian stir fry from seemingly nowhere, at a portable single-hob gas stove. Cunning stuff. It was tasty too. We chatted quite freely, a rarity, I forget about what.

Soon after, pretty shattered, I called it a night and got ready for bed whilst a freight train thundered by outside. It tooted a low note and haunted across a bridge of rusted metal that crossed over the rapids of a silver river that cut its parallel way in front of a barely seen, green mountain face.

The view from the window of my fathers home.

Consarn It!!

I’m sure the word ‘consarn‘ is very close to the word that I’m trying to think of,  if any of you have any ideas let me know…

Meh,  a little deflated today,  small inklings of frustration seeping through the cracks.  I know things will be better,  just a matter of a good nights sleep and a positive week..  Smilie Face!

THE GOOD 

  • My laptop rocks
  • I’m beginning to get paid for work that utilises my creativity!
  • Autumn is beautiful here in the Vermontonian wooded valleys,  golden leaves rain down in the wind
  • I’ve been writing some new songs,  pretty high quality work
  • Friends and family members being very supportive of me and my big adventure
  • I’m going up to Montreal this weekend to visit relatives in Canada
  • Seeing and being with the people over here

THE BAD

  • My laptop didn’t work on the wi-fi hotspot in McNeils pub (damnit, it worked flawlessly everywhere else,  why won’t it let me drink and surf!?)
  • My web-site coding skills need work (darn cross browser compatibility gets me every time).
  • Internet really really sucks here in the middle of nowhere!
  • Getting frustrated about lack of independance (can’t go anywhere without my Father turning up and giving me a lift to places)
  • Car search is going slow (try to rectify the above problem, however all the decent looking car deals get snapped up before I can get anywhere close to checking them out)
  • Still no digital camera (sorry folks, that one is long overdue for the blog)
  • Seem to have gone a few steps backwards in the music theory I was teaching myself,  will have to relearn some stuff
  • Banking sucks here in America compared to UK
  • Finally got confirmation that I was ripped off by credit card fraud on the Canon camera I auctioned before coming over to the States meaning I owe Paypal 415 GBP (plus another 10 GBP for them doing me the service of failing completely to prove to the credit card company in question that I am the victim here.)
  • Having to rebudget a lot of things for my trip due to the above (really could use that $800,  at worst I will probably have to put off travelling west until I have done some more jobs and reearned the money).

A few other odds and ends,  in general I’m doing pretty well I think.  Nothing every goes smoothly but I am confident that the experiences that are coming thick and fast will give continue to give me big pushes in the right direction and I will be thoroughly making the most out my time here as a young man with nothing holding me back from my potential to create and achieve.

Hip, hip, hurrah.