Catchin up.....

Ok, so here's what happened in the last week.....or so...

Getting fitted up last saturday....

With the upcoming wedding of brother andy and sis meelan i had to go get decked out for my best man suit. It took all of 3 minutes, and because the place was so packed i had to get changed in the kitchen!



I had a chat with alan white on the journey back. Al is living dangerously in Leeds at the moment.

I then rushed off to MPLEX, where i bought Jo a lovely new motherboard, processor and ram. I spent all afternoon getting all the bits and bobs out of her old PC case in preperation for the new board's arrival, onnly to find of course that iti didn't fit in the old case! Off down to MPLEX again to get a ne case then....

In total that means i've bought a new hard drive (which didn't work on the old board) a new board (that didn't fit in the old box) and a new box!

Just a small upgrade then!

Having lunch with My parents last sunday



Walking the dog last Sunday

Me and Jo took a walk with Tyson along Loughshore Park at Jordanstown, Newtonabbey. T'was a lovely day, apart from thneare interesting things you can find on the beach like hyperdermic (bad spelling?) needles and random rubbish.



While Joanne frollicked with Tyson, I took the opportunity to call Ross Thompson, a busy man who is getting married soon to the Lovely Ali Pup. They had better have a good wedding band, or there'll be trouble!

During the week...

Among other things, two guys, (Henry and crazy Gav), nearly choked to death on consecutive days. Henry nerly fell foul to a snickers bar, which is pretty bad, but gav nearly expired by lodging a chocolate eclair in his throat.

Thing is, Gav, probably cuse he is a top bloke, was probably trying not to make a fuss and was just quietly choking for about 30 seconds in the corner before we realised anything was wrong. Thankfully after what he said seemed to be an eternity the blockage dislodged and normal service was resumed. Good job really as the rest of us stood there, both arms the same length not really knowing what to do. (sorry gav). Good job for dave (the same guy who looked after my random pin stabbing accident) coming round to give the all clear.

Visiting Raj (thursday)

Visited young raj and family.(raj's site). The cardwell's are a warm generous lot. Visiting their house is always a joy. Among the other stuff we got up to, they introduced me to the willard grant conspiracy A wonderful sounding album. I'll say nothing, go listen or download. (Thanks for the CD folks.)

BIG Paul

Also during the week i had the good fortune to be talking to paul on MSN, its been a veeeeery long time. He's all grow up and has his own blog now too! check here for further details

Here's a cute photo of paul and his much better looking half suzanne (sorry paul).



Zen, the art of motorcar mainetnance, bob, coffee and swingin'

Good job i didn't head for the north west 200! I didn't wake till about 11am!

Paul rang and woke me up and stating that we were having coffee in 10 minutes. This happens a lot, the only problem was i'd run out of coffee and that meant driving into town.

We headed to clements in Botanic Avenue, after dirving through the town blasting some of the most outrageous latino music i had ever listened to, with both windows down at an ear splitting volume. We got some odd looks from the spides walking down the street and even more from the Hararyas.

Coffee was good, and on the way home we picked up a exhaust repair bandage for his decreped 306. This car which went through the MOT about a week ago is held together with chewing gum and duct tape. The exhaust also has a bean can as an integral part of the structure.

Anyhow, Joanne and I headed back into town to try to pick up some messages and some photo supplies, but we got railroaded by a parade of some sort that caused the police to close off the entire city centre. A strong worded letter should be winging its way to them, but i've no idea who they were.

We swung on out of belfast and made out way past Bangor West and off to Groomsport to meet my old boss, Bob Zeller.



Bob, now living in england, still has a house here. Sometimes I help him with his IT problems, but thankfully today wasn't about business. Joanne and I both enjoyed an hour of his company in a small coffee shop with home made buns. (Get better soon Boom).

After we found some swings opposite.....

Faceoff

I looked out my bedroom the other day and saw my cats Polly (pauly) on the left and Arthur on the right triangulating an offensive against an unknown new neighbourhood cat:



I thought it was a bit bizarre, everytime the new guy flinched the other two repositioned to not let him get away.

I watched for about 30 mins and no movement.

Haven't seen the other cat since......

Congrats to the folks getting away from school today, the calm before the storm.

Current track: Jewel "Hands"
Caffine saturation: 23%

(Jewel only made 3 good tracks in my opinion, "Hands", "Who will save your soul" and "You were meant for me". I bought the single for "Hands" in 1997 / 1998 and the other 2 tracks were on as live versions, saving me having to buy the album. Joy.)

Lets go fly a kite!

So, being Joanne's birthday at the weekend, i tryed to get at least one "silly" gift, which this year was, well a silly kite.

"Eddie" being flown below transformed my beloved into a giggling 4 year old for an hour or so, which was nice.







Aside from that we spent all saturday doing 2 things:

1: helping any and Meelan look for wedding photo locations ( andy and meelan's website)

2: basking in sarah the shiny's new Solarium

A good time had by all i think!

Happy birthday darlin'

Joanne hit a milestone today, i'm probably not allowed to say exactly how old she is, so here are some fun photo's of the last little while to detract attention from the fact i nearly did tell!









Love,

M

be excellent to each other.... and party on dude!

The company i work for put me through a service excellence course yesterday. The concept is simple, be nice to your customer and your fellow employees and everyone will be happy with you and your customers will return time and time again.

Some of you may be thinking; "this concept isn't new" and you'd be right. Remember fondly back to the olden days when people treated each other with respect and curtosy? When you knew the guy who sold you your groceries or the butcher or the postmaster or chemist ? You knew those guys and you wen't back for more cuse they looked after you.

The lesson is clear in the 1989 classic Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure "be excellent to each other.. and party on dudes'".

Here is a few pictures of us getting up to excellence:

Really splashed the boat out.....

Joanne said the above while we were talking about election posters and how one guy had really gone for it, wallpapering the whole rathcoole / fernagh area with his face.

She ment to say, "oh he's really pushed the boat out" or "oh, he's really splashed out" but instead it came out as "oh, he's really splashing the boat out!".

Please feel free to post any funny mixups you can think of.

All this election talk brings me to the question, who should i vote for? ANSWER: No one.

Now, i'm well aware of the suffering many people across the world have gone through to have the right to vote, and it is a privilage, but joanne made a good point earlier when she said: "you should be really voting for someone you believe in".

Bearing that in mind, i don't really beleive in any of them, not any one particularly over the other, so I may as well have voted for them all, or none.

Bring me someone who actually promotes peace, through the love of Christ, spreading understanding, consideration, respect. I would vote for that guy.

Anyway, back to business, me and Jo, took Raj and Sarah up to the causeway on monday, a fine day had by all. Pictures to follow. In the meantime, check out the fantastic stuff on Jo's blog.

Peace.

HARAYA goes interweb-global!!!!!!

Today is a red letter day in the hararya? history books. WE'RE NOW A PROPER WEBSITE!

(or at least if you go to www.hararya.com you get this blog, cuse i've nothing on it at the mo)

...to celebrate here is a few pictures of me clutching cuddly toys. Pictures taken by paul fellowes as part of my valentines pressie to the lovely Jo.

enjoy, but at your own risk.

A-TACK! (not for the squeemish)...

So there i was putting up a poster in the office, when i fell from where i standing much to the amusement of me and my work buddies.

All of a sudden the laughter stopped, i looked at my hand and realised that i had fallen on something, i was attacked. The offending article is pictured below, (with a mobile phone besided it for size reference)


The little prick, (actually not so little at 1.75CM or 3/4"), Went in just below my thumb, all the way in.... *going all woosley* The puncture site is pictured below.



Surprisingly, i didn't really feel it go in, but it was fun pulling it out. At first attempt the pin didn't move, i nearly colapsed, after one more good tug though, it popped out.

Lucky I had a shot a while ago, else lock jaw should set in around lunch time!

(many thanks to dave ashe, who attended to the gash!)

Current mood: Lightheaded
Current caffine saturation level: 43.7%
current song: Bob Dylan "I shall be released" (from "the last waltz")

Road Trippin'

Joanne and i did get out, eventually and we played the "left right" game. For those of you who don't know, its a driving game where you get to the end of a road and take it turns to decide whether you are to turn right or left. This game is open to all passengers in the car, no matter how many. (though i'd not reccomend more than 5 for heath and safety reasons).



We found ourselves going down oddly named roads, like the one pictured above. For those of you who live outside Northern Ireland: Put any word you like in front of the word "Bally" and you probably have a place name in Ulster. Its a fun game, tell your friends.

Anyhoo, we had a great time, we brought food and had a quick stop to eat somewhere at the top of a hill, the road leading up to it went all racetrack (pictured below) with all stripy lines and made me drive faster than Jo was comfortable. (snigger!)



current mood: full, sleepy
current tipple: German brandy what my dad brought back from holiday
current tune: Red Hot chilli peppers "road trippin" (Californication)

"Father Jack" for MLA!

Imagine my amusement and horror to find this candidate canvasing by my house!

Getting ready to go out, waiting on paul coming over for some coffee before hopefully heading out for a drive with the lovely Jo.

Life is good.

A bit slow....

Things are a bit slow after such a hectic weekend. I'm taking my mum to the vet's in ballyclare tonight, not cuse she has an alement (you cheeky suggestors), but cuse she needs medicine for our sick cats. Arthur and Polly have had a gum infection that required them to have most of their teeth out. Mmmm, nice.

On a brighter note, i got this coffee maker from Curry's for a fiver.



Current cafine sauration level: 97%
Current music: Bright eyes "Road to Joy" (from "I'm wide awake, its morning")

4 peaks and a basketball game

The weekend started off fun.

My (probably longest) long term buddy, Paul (salvador) Fellowes, was heading into town on friday night and i offered to drop him in. This is a fairly standard thing. Paul is an art and design student and therefore can be a little short on the old greenbacks, so if i'm heading his way i'll play taxi driver.

Paul is living with good friend Alan Doddridge, a man of exceptional intellect and generosity, the later because he's letting paul stay in his house, rent free, on the condition that he does a bit of painting. Paul being a design student is no stranger to a paint brush, so the arrangement works well.

There i was trying no to be late, as is my trademark. I got into the car with a good 10 minutes to spare before the pickup time, paul lives only a few minutes away so i was suckin' deisel.

I arrived at paul's parents house, greeted by his older brother Steve, a kindly well rounded fella, who beckond me on into the living room, where pauls parents were relaxing.

A quick note about paul's parents: Sally and Ronnie are two of the finest people God has graced this world with. It is impossible to leave their house either hungry or without having chuckled outloud. That evening i found them in fine form and i lost track of time chewing the fat with them.

Pau's brother had been on the phone and it must have been at least 20 minutes till he re-appeared in the room. Upon his arrival i said;

"Is that boy (paul) never ready yet?" Paul's family looked back at me in bemusement. "who?" they asked. "...um, paul, is he not ready?" Paul's mum and dad looked at each other, then at steve and then at me. "Paul hasn't been here for ages, he's at his house!" Just then the penny dropped and one of those trademark crash zoom shots knocked me off my seat in a wayne's world sty-le. I had arrived at the wrong house.

We all laughed out loud, i excused myself and hot footed it down to paul and alan's house..

Paul was remarkably gracious about the fact that i had now made him late. We both laughed our collective legs off, put a rolling stones cd on and drove off in the direction of joanne's house in the now fast fading light to the sound of jumpin' jack flash.

After dropping Pauly off, Joanne and i decided, in a rare spare of the moment type whim to go shoot some hoops. Joanne played in school, so she has lots more experience. Thats my excuse, i'm sticking to it. We headed to the Valley Park near the Valley Leisure Centre in Newtownabbey. When we arrived some kids were playing on the climbing frames and swingy things while two guys were flying an enormous kite. I was a bit taken with the kite, it distracted me from getting the ball in the hoop and helped to drown out the fact that Joanne was slagging me off for not being able to shoot. Should have paid more attention to white men can't jump. I wasn't even wearing Nike Air.

Saturday we went through town got some mounts for pictures joanne is going to exhibit at the Odyssey arena this week. I'm all excited about it, cuse she will no doubt be the bell of the ball.

In the PM i had just enough time to call in to my brother Andy and sis Mee-Lan's house warming party, Brian (Banger) rainey, was there as well as my parents and a very kind lady called Janice Chipendale who recently supplied my brother and I with enough furniture to decorate two houses. (Yes she is THAT nice).

I was only there 15 mins and then headed off to Belfast with Jo to a fundraiser for the four peaks challenge. The idea is some folks we know are climbing 4 mountains in 2 days all over the UK, which is a bit of an achievement, all monies raised go to charity. ( to find out more click here)

The night was held at "The Mad Hatter", an excellent eatery on Eglantine Avenue, Belfast.

The evening was comprised of a pub quiz, some food and a ballet ticket prize draw.... oh and some crazy guys who got their kit off for the girls. Now, before i get complaints, i am posting the below pic cuse the guys were both blurred enough to show no detail but give you a good mental image to play around with!



A fab time was had by all in the company of Nixx Giants supporters and good friends Raj, his dad nigel, sarah, the shiney and of course Jo, my fine lady.

Catching up.... again

A busy life i lead. I have had no time to tell you all of the playoffs, but lets face it, you can read all about them here.

Joanne got all the pics up before me, cuse i'm lazy, but here is how my weekend went in pictures:

(rollover pictures to reveal captions - not THAT interesting, but hey.....

ok, in a minute.....

I have tried to find time to update my blog. I have tried to find time to prepare for my management review in the morning. I have tried to read " Zen and the art of motorcycle maintainence".

All i have done is had dinner with Jo and my buddy Paul (pauly) Fellowes and deliver a dirt devil to Brother Andy and Sis-in-law Mee-lan.

Oh, and i did get this from sarah, the shiny.

Enjoy:

you are violet #EE82EE

Your dominant hues are red and blue. You're confident and like showing people new ideas. You play well with others and can be very influential if you want to be. Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Catchin up

I also caught up with alan white when he was over at easter, just wanted to post a picture of him in full flow.

Good to see you Al, I promise to answer the phone when you call next!

cute photo

Ok so i'm posting lots after posting nothing for 2 weeks.

I'm in the mood to post, what can i tell ya.

I took this picture of jo while we were road trippin, i thought it was cute, so i'm putting it on for y'all to see.

I made it small because, even though she's super pretty, she hates big pics of her.... especially here.

(love you honey!)

M



oh, just to prove that not everyone looks cute in that hat, check out this photo of me and dave allen at christmas time:



if you haven't seen dave in a while and want to hear the sound of his voice you can catch him at 1am on most weekdays on alive99.5, click on the "listen live" feature. Alive 99.5 is a christian radio station in canada. I was listening tonight. He mentioned me cuse i kept him late for his shift.

Thanks dave!

M

sorry, i hadn't posted in a while, let me explain...

For several days i've spent time being sick out of all possible avenues of my body. That is way too much information i'm sure. But i just wanted you to get a good clear image.

Jo and I had just been down south for the day, to such wonderful places as termonfeckin, pictured above if you don't beleive me.

Anyhow, i got home and all illness broke loose.



While we were out a crazy dog stepped out into the road, blocking our path. I slammed on the brakes, stopping well short of the brave mutt. He would not move though, as i edged further towards him down the road he stepped up to my bumper, raising himself to his full height.

I reversed a little and he backed off. I drove towards him one more time and took the above pic. He stood strong determined to stop me. I decided to just turn around, the dog won.



On a completely unrelated matter, dad needs his ears syringed, here he is ears full of olive oil, pulling a crazy face.

M

what can i say, i'm a family guy!

Which Family Guy character are you?

Come fly with me...

induction 

Today i flew off, bleary eyed to the uk office of steria, the company that has been kind enough to pluck me from career obscurity and place my feet back on a solid road to being an IT professional.

I think they are great. I'm not just saying that either, none of my bosses read this, so there is no element of ass kissing involved.

To give you an idea of how it works, here is a scenario: My boss decides to do something. I think it's not the best way of going forward. I tell him how i think it could be done better. He listens. He may not change what he planned to do but he will take my view into consideration. If my idea makes more sense than his original idea then he will change. How many businesses work like that?

More often than not in previous employment i've spoken up about an idea where i see something does not make sense and i'm told something to the effect of: "we only pay you from the neck down son, you arent paid to think!"

The trip was fun but it was a bit of a long day.

I started off at 5am in the morrning, picked up by robert, a good work buddy, who drove all the way from n'ards to the airport via my house to save me having to drive. (which was extremly nice of him). We flew out of Aldergrove after a starbucks breakfast where i met Paul Campbell. Paul is a great guy, and an excellent musician, who happened to be flying off that day with his wife to spring harvest. I love when you meet people you haven't seen or even thought of in years and you find that not only did they do well, but they have found love and they seem to be happy. Amen.

Upon landing in Luton airport we discovered that the Easyjet staff were completely unaware of the fact we were coming. Noone had bothered to get them out of bed, air traffic control could have been decent enough to tell someone. The pilot spoke: "ladies and gentlemen, we've made great time from belfast..... which has created some problems for us here on the ground as there is no one on duty yet to receive you. But don't worry, i've got the number of one of the guys, i'll just give him a call...."

Within literally minutes there was a ground crew running to us, which was reassuring, as their main job is to stop us climbing on the wings and getting ourselves wedged into the engines. Good job they were there really, everyone knows how i like to climb on things.

Got a cab to the office in Hemel, a short distance away from the airport. The driver didn't speak that much english, but that doesn't matter, he had GPRS. Bob and I got to the canteen, had breakfast and then joined the other newbies for the main event.

We had an introduction to the history of the company, met some key people and then had to make a presentation to the CEO, who was most definatly not the monster everyone was winding me up to think he was. The man was attentive, polite and kindly to us fresh faced kids who asked awkward questions and tried hard to show him how intelligent we are and that it was a great thing he did by hiring us, adding to the potential of the company.

All went well, and once finished we hot footed it off back to the airport.

Easyjet once again caused a hiccup by printing my boarding pass incorrectly. The stonefaced security, delighted that they had some power over me cast me out of the departure lounge entrance, smugly referring me back to the check-in que to get my ticket adjusted. I passed Stelios, the easyjet owner on my way, who would have got an earful, if it was not for the pesky camera in his face! Off we flew with no further hitch.

Once in belfast i got a lift back with Dave, another newbie. NIce lad.

And home again 12 hours after i left. Bless, i've gone all jetsetter!

Album of the week...

ocms 

Artist: Old Crow Medicine Show (album: Old Crow Medicine Show)

Bluegrass music from 2004.

There is a wide mix of fast paced foot stompers and relaxed guitar pickin. Perfect if you like: 'my dog just died and my girl ran off with my uncle's horse in my beatup pickup' music.

Best review i've read:

See 'em live. See 'em live.

Hitch a ride with a trucker, kill somebody if you have to, but see 'em live. I'd reschedule my wedding for an Old Crow show. Really.

check out their website

Good Music

If, like me you spend lots of time at a computer and you'd like something fresh in your headphones, may i reccomend the Bob Harris show.

Bob plays on Radio 2 at various times of the week; Friday and saturday nights he plays a great mix of new and old stuff, thursday's he plays country. The best bit is there is a listen again feature on the radio 2 website, allowing you to listen to the show at any point during the following week.

Bob's show is the first place i heard Dave Matthews played in the UK, as well as introducing me to a wealth of music you otherwise may never come across such as the drive by truckers and Jack Johnson.

His playlists for every show since 1997 are kept online at bobharris.org which is handy when you are listening in the car and miss the link telling you what that last song was!

click here to listen to bob's friday show
click here to listen to bob's saturday show
click here to listen to Bob's thursday show

for listings click here.

enjoy.

M

Ok, so we came second...

BILL 

...but friday and saturday nights hockey was fantastic. Playing the league champions, Coventry (CHAVentry) Blaze, we had some of the best atmosphere of recent years with an attendance of 6000+ on saturday night.

Some people really got into the spirit of the thing, like Bill, pictured above.

Tonight is the Giants' end of season dinner, which should provide much opportunity to take silly pictures of drunk people.

Watch this space...

oh yeah, want to install osx on your PC?Here's how

Rental car blues...

locked out 

Rental cars rock. I like the concept of being given a vehicle, one you can't afford, using it to its full extent and handing it back to be someone else's problem. Using it to less than its full extent is a waste.

Yesterday I encountered a certain amount of wasted time waiting on the RAC. It wasn't their fault, they were busy... getting the keys out of my jacket, locked in the boot.

As i have already established, i'm an idiot. This isn't news to anyone who knows me. I managed to unlock my boot, take off my jacket placing it on the parcel shelf, (keys in pocket) then slam the thing closed. The moment of realisation hit just about the same time as the boot closing. I stood there looking at the car thinking "that didn't just happen, i couldn't have been so stupid.." It did, and I was. If this had been a soap, there would have been either a crash zoom shot on my face or one of those slow pans out from above to "no suprises" by radiohead.

The rental company, who shall remain nameless in case there are legal issues here, told me that they don't have a spare, not in this coulntry anyway, it would have to come from England and would take 3 days.

"..the cheapest and most efficient way to re-gain access to your car, Mr McIvor, would be to smash a window..."

I kid you not. The "customer adviser" on the other end of the phone who was in a flap did not really want to help was trying to convinvce me to smash her property because it "would be better in the long run".

The long and short of it is that the RAC with the aid of a 12v battery had the sucker open in 3 minutes flat. I probably would get in trouble for saying how he did it, so i won't. The moral here is: Think before you slam, maybe rental cars ain't so groovy after all.

(also never leave valuables in a ford focus, cuse they are dead easy to break into).

A mist that appears for a little while...

Farewell Jeff Raskin

The inventor of the Macintosh computer as we know it and pioneer of computer logic and design passed away yesterday. Check the link above for an idea of who he was.

In sharp contrast congratulations to Fudge and Jo on the birth of their first little'un. A big "hararya" and "welcome" to Tyler James, aw bless.


Tyler James (fudge)