Eventually back from Malta

On the 18th of April we were due to fly to Malta to look around the island with a view of getting married there next summer. The flight was cancelled due to the first incidence of the ash cloud disrupting flights; therefore we rebooked for Sunday 9^th May.

We were due to fly back from Malta on Sunday 16^th May at around 11pm. However, due to what the media are now saying was a non-existent ash cloud, the flight was cancelled.

We were lucky that the hotel we were staying in was very helpful and set us up with three more rooms for the night. After some good use of the hotel internet cafe we had managed to rebook our flights but this time for Luton rather than Leeds Bradford. We arranged to keep our current hire cars for another day and booked hire cars for the UK for the journey from Luton to Leeds.

We took the hire cars to Luqa airports in Malta, got a flight from Malta to Luton, took a bus to pick up our UK hire cars, drove from Luton to Leeds (my parents house), picked up my car and Molly, drove from Leeds to Marske to drop Fiona’s parents off then back home in Thornaby.

Although we have been hit by the ‘ash chaos’ we had a very successful trip. Fiona is part Maltese from her Dads side of the family. When thinking about our wedding we both agreed we did not really want a wedding in the UK. Malta seemed a great option. We both set about Googleing to find some information and ended up contacting the same person without either of us knowing. We viewed four potential venues and have already settled on the venue. We viewed a number of churches and we just have to finalise which one we like out of the final two.

To follow our wedding story check out www.jimandfi.co.uk where a few select pics of our pre-wedding trip will be uploaded soon.

Molly Update

Molly (our new puppy) has been with us for a couple of weeks now. Its been a very interesting couple of weeks with lack of sleep, plenty of cleaning up and lots of learning (us more than Molly)! We are now slowly getting into our routine and I belive Molly is slowly starting to fit in and accepting our place as her new home. She met Jack (Fionas parents dog) who is still coming to the idea of having a small dog running around and Pebble (my parents dog) who totally loves having someone to play with even if she does not quite understand she is double the size and strength of little Molly at the moment. We booked her into have her second injection last Friday (so we thought); however it turns out that she has not had her first injection yet (which we were told she has had) she has instead had a booster jab. So she has had her first injection now and we have to wait another week until she can have her second injection and then another week until we can take her out and about. We cannot wait as we feel this will really help with getting her trained and fitting into a routine comfotably. If you would like to see some more pictures then check out my flickr stream using the tag ‘molly’. (I have also just found out that if you add /show/ onto the end of any flicker link you can view those pictures in a nice flash gallery! Nice!).

Its time to start over

I have recently made the desision to close all other blogging sites and all other web services I do not use and concentrain on this blog. So that means the end to my blog on blogspot and and end to Netvibes, Posterous along with a few other accounts I have picked up along the way. Netvibes is a great service its just not for me. Psterous is an awesome service, my friend James Chorley has a Posterous page and raves about it, it truly is an awesome service… I am just trying to cut down on the things I really do not need to use and have a smaller presence online but one that is stronger.

I will continue to blog occasionaly on nebusiness however I am aiming to make a weekly blog to this site from this point onwards.

I have made quite a few blog posts on my old blog about services for web developers and also life tools which I thought people might find interesting. These will be lost so in time I will look at what I use now and post links and info about these services and others which I think are really worth it. I dont like telling people what they should and should not use on the web because I think people should do their own research but there are some services and websites out there which are unmissable. For example if your looking at getting a domain name then do not look anywhere other than 123-reg.

I am also going to have a facebook friends cull and delete some people who have sneaked onto my friends list somehow. I have never fully understood facebook as a service but I have always liked it. I will use LinkedIn for company and corporate contacts and facebook for family and close friends only.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to receiving comments from you as I begin to post my weekly updates.

R.I.P. Smudge Mills

I am sorry to say that Smudge passed away on the 16th Feb 2009 at the age of 13. She has given every member of the Mills family so much love and happiness. She was very much loved and will be deeply missed.

Facebook Dogbook page for Smudge

Gran Canaria (September 2008)

Fiona and I have just come back from a very relaxing two weeks in Gran Canaria with our good friends Phil and Becky. I have added a couple of links to the bottom of this post. One to Google maps so you can have a look at the place we stayed. Another to Flickr where I have uploaded a couple of images which Phil has sent me, I will upload my own pics as soon as I find five minutes to get them off the camera. We had such a lovely relaxing holiday, ‘big love’ to Phil and Becky for the invite.

View Pics on Flickr (more to come soon)
View Anfi Beach on Google Maps

James Chorley Adventure

My good friend James Chorley is embarking on a four-week pan-European trek covering six countries over 4 weeks. Planned for three years, he is using two wheels to travel around. You can track his progress here on his adventure website which I have put together for him.

He will be sending postcards home which will be scanned and posted online. Pictures will follow upon his return which will be posted on Flicker and linked to from the site. There is also an RSS feed for the ‘adventure blog’.

The trip marks the end of his employment at FPP, upon his return he will be making the big move to London for a new opportunity at one of UK leading digital agencies – AKQA.

Koodoo Creative

I have been working for Applaud Web Solutions just short of two years and have now decided it’s time for a change. I handed in my notice last Thursday (22May08) and worked my last day with Applaud on Friday. I have a week at home this week and I will be starting my new position with Koodoo Creative on Monday (02Aoril08).

I will be working as Koodoo’s senior web developer as part of a dynamic and creative team. Specialising in frontend and backend development (CSS, XHTML, PHP, MySQL). Other skills employed in this position will include: accessibility expertise, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) knowledge and my general dynamic mindset.