from designer to professional footballer…

ok, so it’s an intentionally misleading title but forgive me for my excitement. Recent events have brought me as close to a football career as I will ever get! lol! In the last 3 or 4 weeks, along with a couple of friends,  I have joined a football team -  Agape 2nds. Ok, so we are a small team playing at an extremely low level – 5th division to be precise (and thats of the ameture leagues!!), however, we are still a team playing regularly and competing in a league, so that makes me proud and happy yeeooo! I’m playing Centre Midfield, which is where I like playing best. I’m not 1st choice, in 3 games i’ve started one and came on twice as a sub, but that will be the challenge…to get into the starting line up.

Work with Vision Solutions NI is going well. I’ve built 4 or 5 website since I started 2 months ago and have designed quite a bit of things for print – posters, business cards, leaflets etc. So it’s all going pretty well I feel. I hope that i’m justifying being given the job and hopefully my boss(s) are happy enough with me. Think i’m gonna have a large e-Commerve website to do soon, so that will be tough, will be good to learn though.

Got back to my house (Belfast house) last night after football to hear that our neighbour had died. He just dropped dead…out of the blue. A sudden, unexpected death is nearly always tragic, but this is so much more so. He was probably not more than 30yrs old, and had just got married 3months ago. It’s pretty sad really.

It made me think, and reminded me to thank God every day for every day of life he gives me, and the health and strength that I have. ‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away’.

Lost in spain (almost)

Well…i’m home from our holiday in Benidorm…but just about!! i’ll explain more in a bit. had a really great time over in Benidorm, and i’m missing the weather already. taking the 5/6 days to chill out and relax after a busy busy year was amazing.

now to explain the title of this post. less than 2 hrs before our plane was due to leave…natasha and I were still in Benidorm (about 70km from the airport in Alicante) … and my passport had mysteriously disappeared. our transport to the airport had failed to show up and where my passport went I think i’ll never know…one min it was there…the next it was gone. panic stations.

we raised our prayers to the Lord for much needed help. I sent Natasha to look for a taxi whilst I sprinted to the bank to get money to pay for it. explaining the situation to the taxi driver, he put the foot down and got us to the airport about 20mins before check out was due to close. still the small issue of my lack of a passport!! sending Natasha on to check herself in (she wanted to stay with me but I insisted there was no point the two of us being stranded at the airport) I went about trying to figure out what to do about the passport situation.

Frantic sprints back and forth across the airport, between the helpdesks, police office, helpdesks, EasyJet’s office and the check in were taking their toll in the short time I had before the plane left. A phonecall to the British Embassy helped matters along, and somehow or other…I was allowed onto the plain. I shouldn’t have been on that plane, no way, esp not in today’s security tightened airports.

it was an AMAZING answer to prayer. Whilst I was going about doing everything, I was continuously praying to God to help me and to intervene. It’s when we need Him most that God shows His power. He led me to the right people that I needed to see to sort it all out…and they managed to have a good enough grasp of English to understand me (or if they didn’t, there happened to be someone there to translate, which was the case with one person). Gods hand was upon it all. Thank-you Lord.

update from Benidorm

We (Natasha and I) are having a great time here in Benidorm, Spain. The weather has been great so far (we´ve been careful not to burn too badly although that can be difficult!!). I´ve just dropped into an interent cafe to check the emails but i´ll drop a line or two about our trip so far.

We arrived on Monday morning as expected, and after a little difficulty finiding the correct transfer, we reached our hotel – the Olympus. No complaints about the hotel whatsoever, it has a really nice lobby etc, and whilst the rooms arn´t quite so classy, yet adequate, the food (we´ve gone half board) is excellent !! and thats a big plus for me.

We spent Monday having a nosey around the town and beach, picking up some brochures etc. On Tuesday we enjoyed a relaxing day at the beach and swimming in the Mediterranean. Today we went to Terra Mitica…a large theme park just a short bus ride from the hotel. It was alot of fun, and combined with the sun has made me tired. I think i´ll take and early night as we are heading on a boat trip out to the Island of Tabarja tomorrow, so that should be fun.

That´s all for now from Benidrom

so now i’m ‘blogging’…

it was put to me just the other day that

‘mate…this is the first day of the rest of our lives’

the backdrop to this comment was the completion of our final university exam…it’s strange. the best part of 20yrs of my life has been spent training and educating me for what comes next. now i have to figure that out.

now its time to look for employment really. i’ll be graduating with a degree in Interactive Mulitmedia Design (IMD) … I think my future will probably entail working in the field of web design. At times though, I have my reservations.

I have an interview tomorrow for a job as a ‘Web Developer’ for NWIPP. I’ve just spent the last few hours doing some research into the company and their portfolio. Being honest, I think they have MUCH room for improvement. I have my doubts though if I can provide that improvement or not. I’m not much good at interviews …

However, I can leave this interview in the hands of the Lord. What will be…will be