bitsofbobs

That one took ages, and not the easiest to draw on a wonky train I tells you. Bigger one here.

This blog was supposed to be about the fact that me and nic had made lots of awesome food from scratch this weekend. I’m gonna get it out the way quite quickly cause there’s a bigger more important announcement. We made blueberry muffins…damn they’re good, some big chunky veg soup and some awesome pizzas including the bases. good practice for packed lunch month coming up in april.

I’ve recently turned my back on coffee…there i’ve said it. We’ve been through alot me and coffee. but tea now makes up more than 28% of my body mass. I love it. For years I mocked…quaffed almost at tea drinkers so this is an official apology to all my tea drinking friends who’ve been telling me for years…now look at me! get a brew on!

OH MY WORD! my first IMAX experience…and not my last might I add. I couldn’t wait. I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest all my friends were really crap at explaining how it worked etc. So we were second in the queue, Now I was excited but not nearly excited as some of the children there who were physically jumping with excitement…I wasn’t far off. Ran in got the optimum seats…slap bang in the middle of the middle.

I couldn’t believe it…I was lost for words. I’ve been on this earth for nearly 28 years, I have the internet, I was confused. I kept thinking back to all those episodes of tomorrows world I used to watch and be like…wow no way. AMAZING go see it. Not going back to the crappy default run of the mill cinemas again…no sir…IMAX all the way.

254 floppy disks or 366MB worth of doodle…NEXT! bigger one here.

Got some new doodle books, some little tiny moleskines going to attempt to fill the book with tiny doodles. Did most of this on my train journeys to work and back…no smudges woohoo! bigger one here…should you need it

They’ve been on my desk all day…just watching me. They’re so filthy…I’m embarrassed to eat them almost. I might hide them. There’s no possible way to deny the fact you’ve eaten scampi n lemon nik naks the odour alone lasts a week. Then you’ve at least a month of scrubbing to get the scampi powder off your fingers…All this talk…I’m gonna eat them!

Lunchtime doodle…age

There’s a man moment right there. Cable tying, nothing quite as satisfying as spending an afternoon measuring cable to just the right length and tying it. It’s up there with cooking a good steak or using a drill.

If like me you get constantly caught up in random debate but never get round to googling it then here’s a lesson for you right here. The banter…Can you/how do you make a living from sport (mostly athletic for some reason was the topic) it quickly moved to pole vaulting as the most obscure sport to use as an example. If you pole vaulted for a living? would you need another job or could you make enough money vaulting to sustain a career. Normally these things just fizzle away unanswered. Not this time. Straight back to the office and googled everything pole vault career related “pole vaulting for a living”, “working as a pole vaulter” and lots of others with no solid answer. Quickly I realised I needed to speak to somone…someone who could tell me…straight. More googling…hard work I looked into universities, personal trainers and most of them appeared to be in the USA. Eventually I ended up at the Polevault Safety Certification Board or rather catchy pvscb for short. Found an info contact there so just randomly emailed the following.

Hi there, was wondering if you could help me? It was more a conversation piece than anything but… If you did become a professional pole vaulter what kind of income could you make? for instance…If i was pole vaulting professionally could I make a living from it or would I have to hold down a part time/other full time job?

thanks
rob

Minutes passed then bomp…response

Rob,

Great question! Back when I was jumping in the 90′s If you were in the top 15 or so in the world you could easily make a good living and not need to get a job (50k USD or more). I hear it is more difficult these days since you must compete for prize money in each meet. This means you always need to be jumping well to earn any money. You can win as much as 10k if you win a meet for example. 5th place might only get 2k. Hope this helps.

Dean

This kind of stuff makes me very happy I love it when people take the time to answer my seemingly random questions and look at his answer…RIGHT on the money. Didn’t even had to ask anymore questions to clarify the issue.

I had to send an email back expressing my happiness.

Hi Dean,

That’s brilliant…thanks very much. It just popped up into conversation…it just happened to be pole vaulting as an example.

Thanks for your help…much appreciated.

Out of interest what job now as an ex pole vaulter like yourself now do? and do you occasionally vault?

these are all questions I thought I’d never ask/need to know but might as well make the most of it

thanks again.
take care
robj

One thing lead to another he did get back to me told me where he was working and also had a link to his website. I went back to work satisfied I’d come to a conclusion and happy that a random email had ended in a pleasant chat with Dean who was more than happy to help. It wasn’t till later in the day I checked his links again and went to deans about section….then bomp there it was…I couldn’t believe it

IT’S ONLY DEAN STARKEY 1997 BRONZE MEDAL OLYMPIC MEDAL WINNER AT ATHENS.

Ladies and gentleman round of applause, Mr Dean Starkey. Brilliant. How many olympic medal winners do you have in your email contacts…huh?

I did email him back feeling slightly humbled and did give him a virtual high five. Brilliant. I love the Internet

Following the success of lunchtime wander it was decided again…to wander. Another lovely day yesterday…Blue sky couple of fluffly clouds. Lunch time bell goes and it’s off to central station looking for adventure. Hmm what goes well on sunny days? parks do. Couple of stops in I spotted it ignoring the pointing elephant. Maxwell park. South side about 10 mins away and 2 stops…perfect.

Arrived, lovely place…birds singing…was all very disney. Was literally over the tracks to the park. Loved it. Noted during summer rather than trying to squeeze onto a wee patch of scabby grass in george square. The park itself was pretty big had a pond, had a couple of swans on it…i’d call it a classic pond. The park had a massive avenue of trees that ran right through the middle of it. As well as a large array of empty benches to choose from.

Not one ned in site…brilliant. Some pretty posh houses around it. No shops around though but good for a picnic…tick