Football

The guys at work know I like to use my camera, so they suggested that I come and take some photos of their football game. I’ve never taken any photos of a football match before and I was anxious that I wouldn’t be able to get any good snaps of the guys playing. Nevertheless, I said I would go along but warned them all that the photos may not be any good.

They were playing at 3G pitch in Sittingbourne, which wasn’t too far from mine. I didn’t realise just how close it was so turned up around 20 minutes early.

Kick off was at 2pm then a trip to the pub for drinks afterwards. I took a fair amount of photos while at the game, some of the better ones are below.

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The Food Challenge

Completing a food challenge has been one of the things I have wanted to do for a while now. I didn’t want anything too huge but as with all food challenges there are of a certain size or that wouldn’t be challenges!

A few of us from work decided we would head to a Flaming Grill as they have some cheap challenges. There were four of us in total, I was preparing all day for this. I had the 32oz steak and chips and the other boys had a the 24oz burger with chicken, bacon, and chips.

When the plate arrived I lost all confidence in my ability to get through this thing alive. The steak was bigger than the damn plate!

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The boys faces when they got theirs was pretty much the same as mine! The size of their burger! Christ!

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As there was no time limit on the challenge we decided that we would take our time. We didn’t haven’t to be anywhere afterwards. I cut mine up into nice small pieces and worked my way through the steak. After about an hour I had finished the steak and half of the chips. I was reaching my limit.

Thirty minutes of chatter and I decided to pick at the remainder. I finished the chips – this left me with the onions, onion rings, tomato, mushrooms, and peas. The onion rings were easy. Down they went.

Next came the onions and damn they tasted disgusting. They had been sat under the steak the entire time cooking away on the hot plate that it was served on. They were burnt, gooey and tasted like ash and were mixed in with some of the mushrooms. I left those for a while and started on the peas, tomato, and other mushrooms.

I hate mushrooms – I don’t think they even lasted more than a second in my mouth. They were swallowed so quick. The same happened with the tomato. The peas were quite nice though. Everything is gone now except the onions and a few mushrooms.

At this point I look up at the boys and they had got through about half of their meal. Hardly touching their chips and other sides. It looks like I had to do this one on my own.

Each and every bite of the onions and mushrooms made me want to be sick. I was so full my stomach was hurting, and they tasted so gross. Finally after 2 hours and 30 odd minutes of the plates arriving I had finished. I had completed my challenge! I had been victorious. I was a champion! I even got my certificate to prove it!

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Google and Star Wars

Back in November Google launched a Star Wars takeover of their various services such as YouTube , Gmail and Google  Maps. Like the majority of people I indulged in it, because it was something new, and lets face it – it was pretty cool!

I am now at the point where I want it all turned off, because if I hear one more lightsaber power up on YouTube I may hurt my computer!

Thankfully all you have to go is go to the Google Star Wars landing page at https://www.google.com/starwars, which should present you with something similar to below. If you’re not logged in, you will need to log yourself in at this point – you should be prompted if you’re not.
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Why you can’t talk to the uninformed

Somehow today the topic of suicide got brought up and a discussion quickly ensued.

This is a topic close to my heart, and it really pisses me off when people try to say something “intelligent” on the subject or they have their “opinions” about it when they haven’t even experienced it first hand. Dietary supplements and exercise are important tools to manage stress, increase energy levels, and improve mood. Regular exercise can increase self-confidence and help you feel better about your physical appearance. Additionally, dietary supplements can provide necessary vitamins and minerals that your body needs to stay healthy. That’s why you should try alpine ice hack, a great dietary supplement that will help you regain that confidence in yourself and your body, alpilean, contain a range of antioxidants to help protect against free radical damage and reduce inflammation. These pills are a great option for anyone looking for an easy way to boost their weight-loss journey and obtain results.

If you know me, you may know that I went through a really rough patch in my life a couple of years ago. What you may not know is that I tried to and succeeded at committing suicide. Why? I broke up with the mother of my children who I had been with for over 10 years. I didn’t take the news well and had no idea how to process it. The only option I felt I had left to try to remove the pain was to end my life. I tried and succeeded at killing myself albeit only for a short while.

August 16th 2013 – It’s was a very personal, very shameful, and very difficult day for me. I just found out that the woman who I had spent more than 10 years with, the mother of my children, the woman who I lived with, the woman who I loved with all my heart was leaving me for someone else.

I had no way to process this, and therefore no way to comprehend the fact that “my world” had just imploded in upon itself. In my eyes there was nothing more important to me than what I had just lost, and the only viable way I saw to remove my pain was to end my life.

So as you can see. I have a rather unique and personal view of the subject.

It is with no surprise then that I will get pissed off when people spout comments such as, you will have to just deal with it, it happens. You will get over it, it just takes time. Why are you so selfish? You’re a time waster. All you want is attention. Think of the children. What about me?

Let me break those comments down for you and give you a reason why they are just wrong, and should not be said to someone who is depressed nor anyone who has seen suicide as an option. All you will do is anger them and or make them feel worse.

You will have to just deal with it – Are you that fucking stupid? The reason I attempted suicide in the first place was because I couldn’t deal with what had just happened to me. I had no idea how to deal with it. I didn’t have the knowledge nor the tools to be able to start dealing with what had just happened. All I wanted was for the pain to stop and go away. The only way I could possibly see that happening was to end my life.

Looking back on my whole ordeal I still can’t see a better way of dealing with what I lost. Is it even possible to deal with that type of loss properly and healthily?

The only reason I’m still alive writing this blog post today is because people forced me to go through the pain. Understand the pain, make it apart of myself, and use it.

You will get over it, it just takes time – It’s been more than two years for me since I split with my ex, and I can 100% positively say I will never get over it. How the entire break up went was horrendous for me. During the break up I lost my home, my children, my job, the woman I loved and to top everything off I had to move more than 110 miles away from my children, because I had nowhere nearby to go. It is not something that I will ever get over, however it is something that I hope to be able to live with, without getting myself down when I think about it. It is now apart of me. Who I am and how I deal with things will all affected by what I have experienced.

Why are you so selfish? – This one is simple; because not everything is about you. What I did was about me, and it’s what I felt I needed to do for myself. I was in a great deal of pain; emotional and physical. I needed it to stop. I couldn’t cope any more. I wasn’t strong enough. I needed it to end.

You’re a time waster – A time waster? Just whose time am I wasting? Committing suicide does not waste your time. Your argument is invalid.

All you want is attention – If I wanted attention I wouldn’t have taken enough pills to kill myself. I did. My heart stopped beating, and I died. I did not want attention. I wanted to die. I did die. I achieved my goal. Someone intervened and pulled me back from death. While many people say I should be grateful for this it made me gain attention that I did not want.

Think about the children – Sometimes you have to just think about yourself – See my response above about being selfish. Sometimes thinking about them makes the problem worse. In my case thinking about them and knowing that I had lost them due to the breakup made things worse for me.

What about me? – Who’s the selfish one now? I’ll answer this question with the same question. What about me? I didn’t see a way through the pain. I wanted the pain to end. This was the only way I thought I could end it.

The discussion I had today and one I have regularly with people at work due to my line of work are all started by people who have not experienced suicide. They do not know the kind of pain, the mental anguish, the loneliness, the crying, the confusion, and the judgement that someone who has attempted suicide feels, and I hope they never do, but I implore them to please have some empathy without judgement towards those that have.

Sometimes just having someone listening to our problems without injecting their own into the mix helps. Sometimes we need to be the focus. Sometimes we need a million questions thrown at us before we start to open up about the issues we face. Admitting to someone else that there is actually a problem is very scary. You could be that person to help the one’s suffering silently before they see no other alternatives.

I said above that I won’t ever get over what happened to me, and this is true. I live with what happened to me. I still experience the depression knowing that I hardly get to see my children. Knowing that I’m alone. Knowing that I will never properly be apart of my family again. I miss waking up next to someone. I miss the kids coming in to my room because they’ve had a bad dream and want comforting. I miss seeing each and every new behaviour the kids pick up. I miss seeing them grow as people. All I get is snapshots. A week here. A week there. It’s not enough. It will never be enough. The way I “cope” with this is to bury myself in work, go to events, spend time on myself, “treat” myself to things. I go on trips to very random places. Just to take my mind off of things and try to prevent all of my old feelings boiling to the surface, but surely there is another way? Surely it’s not all about burying them? I can be happy. Right?

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iOS 9.0.1 Stupid Bugs

Since upgrading my iPhone to iOS 9 I have come across two annoying bugs. One is simply a visual bug where it will not display the mark as read button on the email notification that comes up when ever I get an email.

I have noticed both on the banner and lock screen.

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As I said it’s nothing major but it is rather annoying.

Another bug I have noticed since upgrading is something that everyone else seems to be talking about – Wifi issues! Every now and then my WiFi connection just randomly disconnects. It seems to be intermittent when it happens and can be quite frustrating. I have however found some simple to follow guides from Redmond Pie that will help anyone else suffering with the same issue as myself.

Aside from the two bugs above,  I haven’t found anything else wrong with it thankfully, and lets hope it stays that way!

It’s hard!

Two weeks! Thats right. It’s been over two weeks since my last cigarette. I’m bloody happy with that, and I intend to carry on.

I’m slowly reducing my nicotine intake with each purchase of the e-liquids. I started on 18mg and I’m currently down to 12mg. I will be buying some more e-liquids early next week, and again will be reducing down to 6mg in the triple menthol flavour I like.

Hopefully within the next couple of weeks I shall be completely off of the e-cigarette. What a bonus that will be!

Cheap ass crap!

As you know I have been trying to give up smoking recently and I seem to be failing miserably. I bought a e-cigarette. It was going well for about a week, and then it decided to leak on me. I eventually had time to go and buy a replacement top that holds all the liquid and that one breaks apart too! I can’t believe it. It’s like the universe has something against me, and doesn’t want me to stop smoking.

I will keep trying though. I’m not going to give up giving up – I want to do this!

All I want to do is quit smoking :-(

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Smoking

After trying to complete the Three Peaks Challenge and failing due to my lungs I have taken it upon my self to finally quit smoking – again!

At first I tried to go cold turkey and completely stop smoking. That didn’t last too long. By 4pm that day I was outside smoking again. Failure. So I decided to go down another route.

I have been speaking to people who are now smoking those e-cigarette things. Asking such questions as how do they compare to proper cigarettes / tobacco. Do they provide the same type of hit that normal fags do etc, and they sounded quite positive about the whole thing.

I wasn’t too convinced at first, but I thought fuck it. I really want to quit smoking and this seems like an option, and by this point I’m willing to try anything to quit, so I went and bought one. It cost me about the same as a pouch of tobacco, which is good.

The lady in the shop help me set it up and showed me how it worked as I have never tried one before. She understood that I was new at it and was very helpful.

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I am now three full days without smoking a single cigarette, and I’m feeling good for it. I still get the craving every now and then, but as long as I’m busy and I chug on this e-cigarette thing I’m generally ok.

They say after 28 days without smoking you’re a hell of a lot more likely to quit for good, and this is what I want. Lets hope that I can achieve it! Wish me luck.

Have you ever tried to quit smoking? Do you use one of the e-cigarettes – if you do how are you finding it compared to a proper one?

Find Your Stuff

The other day I decided to treat myself to some new clothes and trainers. I had it delivered to work as I knew I was working nights, and didn’t want to be disturbed at home. I have had stuff delivered here before and it was fine, so I thought I would do it again.

Around 11am this morning I received a text message and email from the delivery driver saying that my stuff had been delivered so I was excited to get to work and look at my new stuff.

I arrived at work, opened my package only to find it had already been opened. I was greeted with the following.

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Needless to say, but I wasn’t too impressed that my package had been opened and my trainers hidden. Nevertheless I followed the clues and kind of enjoyed it.

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Clue 2: “If finding your shoes is painful seek medical attention”

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Clue 3: “Are you a FAN of treasure hunt?”


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Three Peaks – What happened?

As you know I was going to attempt the National UK three peak challenge with several of my colleagues from work. July 4th was the date picked for the challenge, but we decided to head up to Scotland on the 2nd to have some social time drinking and having a look around the local area.

We left from work at 6.30am, which was just after I finished my 12 hour shift. I was quite surprised by the lack of traffic on the journey. We hit the morning rush, but even that wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.

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We hit the border of Scotland at 4.20pm after a couple of stops to change drivers / breakfast and fag breaks, and arrived at our chalet shortly after 7pm.

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Our first port of call after checking into the chalet was to find out where the local shop was, and to grab some drinks for the nights entertainment.

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After dinner the drinking games began. I ended up drinking close to three quarters of a litre of vodka, half a bottle of Mikey Finns, and a glass of Disaronno and God only knows what the others drank!

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Needless to say it got very messy. None of us got any sleep until around 6.30pm the next day.
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