Trip Blog 1 : Aberdeen -> Preston

Just a quick update on my trip down to cornwall....we got to Preston last night and had one of he best long haul drives we've had. Loads of laughs about things which were just not funny, plenty of toilet, and breaks. We didnt get too lost anywhere, but we did tempt ourselves to go eat out for dinner, but everytime we saw somewhere we had driven past ad we said "oh we'll wait until the next one" and we pretty much did that until we got to Preston, so Petroleum was the only expense. Oh apart from we got stuck for about an hour on the far side of Aberdeen in late rish hour and literally didnt move for about 20 mins so I decided "Ill just jump out the car open up the trunk (on John's bosses sweeeet 4x4 pickup truck) and grab the CD's as I soon as Id fiddled my way through the 7 or 8 locks t get in and found John's CD's the traffic was moving and we were sitting in a dual carriage way with me running around the car with CD's!!! typical! Havent taken any photos or Id make this post a little bit more pretty but no. One stroke of genius I got (after buying the Hillsongs DVD+CD album More than Life was to get a little tape to mini jack convertor at ASDA on the way out of Aberdeen and hook up my laptop so we had in car entertainment in the car playing a DVD with surround sound in the car!...pretty cool, John watched the whole thing and we just trusted the Lord to guide the car (ok....maybe not!) So we arrived in Preston and met a couple of old friends the our youth group by this time it was about 1am...and we just caught up for a while then John and I got into that crazy tired mood of everything being unbelievably funny: It kind of started with talk about wedding lists and stuff, we were saying how funny it would be to have one at PRIMARK, PC World, or Oxfam, then I thought of Banardo's (UK Thrift Store) and we just couldnt stop laughing in a house of sleeping people ooops, we just though how funny it would be: - Brown Glass Lampshade - 25p - Granny Sofa - £15 - Cutlery Set £2.50 etc etc you get the idea we were being middle class snobs and finding ourselves hilarious. So thats us, today we have a wedding at 1pm, which I forgot to bring shoes for and so I have to make a trip to ASDA (Oh Faithful friend) and pick up some cheapo shoes, thatll teach me to laugh at the friendly folks at banardos eh!

Mac Down

Im down in Cornwall just now staying with the family and seeing some old friends. I went to a great wedding in Preston over the weekend and I blogged it a bit (offline) but as they say in the war movies "mac down, mac down" OK thats man, and thats also a terrible joke, but if it wasnt enough that Im away from Rachel for a week now they've taken my iBook...some kids jumped on it when I was in preston bending the DVD drive which meant my DVD got stuck in. Anyway its in the local Apple store getting fixed over night, no good now that Im trying to act like a couch potato and watch the OC series 1 and 2. Anyway I have a few posts waiting to go up once my iBook finds some wifi action but cornwall is still in the pre broadband years never mind wireless networking (Im a geekster!) Also: I just noticed this blog looks crap on AOL, so dont use it...I know its got good tech support. but come your own browser

Exams, Flu, Banksy

I had my first exam today, it went really well, Im pretty assured of a pass. So thats great thanks to all who were praying for me. I have another tomorrow and one the next day both at 9am til 11am. Im dreading tomorrows and for the amount I understood of the course I probably deserve to fail, but I really dont want to have to retake it! Another very cool answer to prayer I had yesterday was a flu which was coming on (or so I thought) that Jane just got over and Lindsay has gone down with, has cleared in one day, completly supernaturally!..so Thank God for that! I really didnt want it for my exams or for my trip home to Cornwall. Just had a quick read of Banksy Wall and Piece that Dave Smith just bought, really awesome stuff heres a piece of art he drew on the Palestine segregation wall You can see some of his other stuff over at http://www.banksy.co.uk/ He speaks about this old palestinian man he spoke to: Old Man: You make the wall look beautiful with your graffiti Banksy: Thanks Old Man: Its a Bad thing, we hate tjhe wall, Go Home

Going to Cornwall Jan 2006

And now for a World Exclusive....Im coming home to Cornwall...! Just for a week but I was a little homesick and have been missing people and things down there, and having second level culture shock up here! Anyway Ill be home from around Sunday evening (coming) the 29th to The next Saturday. I would love to meet YOU (Sorry I havent got time to call/txt you all but you know who you are, even the people who dont think Im talking to them!!) for coffee so email me byrnesyliam@gmail.com or txt me on 07766700813

Technorati Tags: cornwall

Google Earth for the Mac

Im also playing around with Google Earth which has just been released on mac....thanks google, but I cant resize the window to use the navigate functions as they are stuck under the dashboard bar! UPDATE: Click the + button and then resize like normal windows on the bottom right corner

Technorati Tags: google earth

Album o the Month: Jay Z Unplugged

in other news my album of the Month (as if Ive had one before!) is

"Jay-Z Unplugged +3 Video Clips" (Jay-Z)

Though I dont own the CD Ive been listening to it through the now legal Napster!...Really cool roots band playing the songs.

Technorati Tags: jay z, napster

taking a pause

Well as you may have noticed Ive been hardly blogging in the last week or so, well thats because I chose a really heavy diet of courses this semester at uni so I can have a slacker one next semester. But the exams for these courses are Wed, Thur, Fri this week. So much revision is happening, just thought Id let you know!...feel free to pray

Technorati Tags: University, Exams

Salling Click and Bex Bowtell

Pretty cool mobile phone app for the mac here Salling Click it connects through bluetooth and then tells you whose calling etc. I would really road test it but I afraid if I download the demoI would end up being won over and $23 on the full version. Found this at my friend bex's site (OuterCore) who non incidentally is being apprehended for something she hasn't done, well there is a funny side to this, I think! click here

Technorati Tags: mobile technology, bluetooth technology, technology

Nature of Wifi

Im just on the bus going to Aberdeen into Uni, I know its kind of one of the wonders that I can writing this blog on a bus even. That type of stuff was unthinkable 10 years ago...even more unthinkable is the revolution to free speech and unregulated publication the Internet has enabled. I was going through Fraserburgh when my iBook asked me if I wanted to connect to "open network MAITLANDS", Maitlands is a local successful furniture store that coincidentally my friend John Gillespie works for. Now Im sure the network would have required a password etc etc. But surely (infact I think I might know a few people) who could just bypass those type of security measures, then you've got free bandwidth etc. Anyway this is just a short thought about how 5 yeas ago I was on a computer in a massive server case running win95 on 56k connection (that always failed and got interrupted) and today Im driving down a road and getting offered super fast internet connection through the air!!! Just allow me to be wowed at technology for a second. Listening to: The Warmth from the album "Make Yourself" by Incubus

Technorati Tags: Fraserburgh, internet, john gillesipe, Maitlands, technology, wifi

Elizabeth Rose

IMG_0137.JPG
Originally uploaded by Byrnesyliam.

Just a quick post while Im in a little Internet Cafe in Fraserburgh, yesterday I went and visited Elizabeth Rose Fyvie, Stuart and Emelies new daughter. It was amazing!...and she is really beautiful. Emelie is doing well as well, and yesterday was taken back to Fraserburgh hospital, where she'll spend a couple of days before getting home to St Combs.
There are more photos at http://flickr.com/photos/byrnesy/sets/1810167/

Lost Complete Season released

Lost Complete Season 1 just got released on DVD....ooo tempting, funny how they coincide these things with Student Loan payements....ok maybe not I do think LOST is pretty cool though.

Tech Problems with the site

Sorry if you were bemused with the site for the last afternoon, I had some problems with post publishing from ecto onto the server. Duplicate posts and the like. Everything is back to normal now....I hope. email me if there are any problems that you can see byrnesyliam@gmail.com Oh and Scroll down for what were until now the troublesome posts that caused this! Also note the introduction to technorati tags, seems to be the thing to do and it means stuff is easier to find. Also really easy to do with ecto, though ecto and I are having an off day with each other today, though a bad workman always blames his tools as my mum always said!

Christmas in retrospect

Well, unfortunately for both me and you I dont have any profound Christmas truths to unpack, I dont really know anything about the big pagan/christmas was actually inn september debate thing, Its not really all that important. But I had an awesome time over Christmas...it was a bit like all the community that has been built over the last year or so living here really was tangible, if Im even using the right word. At any rate I had a very community centred Christmas...which was great coz I love them all. The only draw back was I didnt have a family Christmas, and for everyone (3 now) I feel the urgency to go home to cornwall and make they know I love them! Over Christmas, my best friend John and another really good friend Jane were all "alone" for Christmas (cant you hear the violins of sympathy) so decided to spend Christmas day (Wow that sound much more tragic than I remember it). At any rate we arranged to give each other Stockings (in denial of not being at home and surely surely still being young enough to get one) and had arranged to all bring family tradition that we had to honour over the Christmas period. Just before Christmas we got an offer from a family in the Church "The Fyvies" to go for dinner, now we were quite amused to cook ourselves, but it was a really good offer as we are all really good friends with the Fyvie family and knew Susan would cook an absolute awesome dinner! So we decided Christmas morning was at our house opening stockings and presents and then at 1pm off to the Fyvies (who also have their own castle check it out...im joking)! So my Christmas period ran something like this: Christmas eve: We had a few people over, Carollers came to the door, we made eggnog and Gillespie brownies, Oreos, dougnuts, quality street ...and watched Robin Hood Men in Tights Christmas Day: Woke up at around 8:30 and went for a shower, by the time I got out Jane had come over, we made awesome pancakes with maple syrup and bacon which is just amazing, but very filling, then we opened our stockings, the guys (bless em) did the dishes while I did the ET thing and phoned home Also as a surprise I got Janes family to email me christmas messages and they even sent a Christmas video, but we wont even go there. Crazy Orcadians Then to the Fyvies, for lunch...mmmm So basically that was my Christmas, Apart from Boxing day which was a very nice Christmas after touch, where I asked Rachel who Ive liked for a good while out....I feel like a Grade A geek to blog that but it had to come into the narrative somehow! Sorry to anyone who didnt hear through the grapevine and feels like I should have told you...Ive not been over vocal about it, just let it travel like gossip!

Technorati Tags: christmas

again its said better than I could

Well as ever Arlen said it better than I could so Im just gonna link it over....well actually although Arlen does say things better than me, he normally finds someone who said something better than we both could have said it, so thanks Arlen for inspiring and sometimes being the very content of my posts! check out the post here "Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day's work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly.... Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." --Frederick Buechner Also not sure how to add trackback stuff but I would if I could this is the track back URL for this http://haloscan.com/tb/wandererofthenorth/113662874409351370

Technorati Tags: arlenhanson, god

What a Night

man what a night, everybody came over and we had a nice green thai curry with cous cous and salad type stuff, a meal making process that was full of stress for me for some reason but after sitting down and getting out of that I was fine! Caught up with Lindsay who had been away for the Christmas period. Then we sat down to watch some of the Live8 DVD I bought John for his birthday

"Live 8 [2005]" (EMI Studios)

But the real news of the night is our real good friends Emily and Stuart (My Girlfriends brother) had a baby after a long labour time....anyway after all that Emily and Stuart Fyvie had a baby GIRL on the 6th of January at 8:15pm called Elizabeth Rose Fyvie who weighs 8.5lbs.

Stuart just came home to sleep as he's only had 4 hours in the last 3 days...anyway he showed us photos and a video (of the baby by the way not the birth!!!!) Anyway I wasnt quick enough (and he looked tired) to get the photos but just thought Id let you know for all of you who know them.

Pure Mission Minds - Knowing why

Haven't had very much time to blog just recently but heres some quotes from a post on Mission Dei from Andrew Jones..heres the post Also Im in the office just now so Im blogging from the blogger site, man its sucks...well its just more difficult, shows how used I am to ecto, definatly recommended! Anyway as I was saying, some quotes that really focussed my mission mindedness today: "the Missio Dei or mission of God. The concept is that mission is not a program of the church but rather an attribute of God. Mission comes first from the heart of God and we are caught up in it rather than initiating it. Mission is primarily the work of God and we participate with God in what He is doing.....Missio Dei sees our mission as stemming from the Triune God: The Father sends the Son, the Father and the Son send the Spirit The Father and and Son and the Spirit send the church. into the world. As the Father sent me, so I send you. (Jesus) Our Christology influences our missiology which influences our ecclesiology."