Another Monday, Another Blog Entry

hey check me out:
Hot Or Not
Did it as a competition but never expected this score! Now don't go and ruin it for me, vote high!
Found a few other people that I know on here - very random.

Anyway to what I have been upto.
Well last Monday we had football instead of Mission Men - and I won! How on earth can I win at football I am rubbish - perhaps it's because I was playing against 14-15 year olds. "2 and through" in now my favourite sport. Well apart from BMXing.

Tuesday night Bus was alright. Thunderstorms and very wet . But quite a few soggy kids attended. We are getting alot more younger age kids (12-14) now rather than the older teens we used to get when we started out. In some ways it's good but in others they are harder to control and a little more hyper.

Wednesday night was a chill out night. tidying and ironing - Rock and Roll I know. then went to the Cinema and Watched "Sahara", which was a James Bond/Indiana Jones/Navy Seals extravaganza. Of course you can use a "Pirates of the Caribean" type cannon to destroy a Helicopter gunship!

Thursday night everyone dropped out of the meeting so took the dog for a wander round the estate. and then watched A Knights Tale a film I hadn't seen for a long time. Puurrrrrrr Jocelyn.

Friday was the usual relax then to BSB for OTS. it was a busy night with just me and Kovas on the decks. I enjoyed it apart from one of the decks going wrong and leaving me with a sound problem in the middle of my set. Sometimes you run the night and it really drags, sometimes it's as easy as pie. Friday was a good one.

Saturday, had a Blonde in my bed all morning. Shame she has four legs. Town to have a browse and then a boys night playing James Bond on the projector screen and then an early night, well an early night for me.

Sunday my folks popped down for my Moms Bday. I told them about me leaving in August, which went down okay. then curtain shopping for Ma and then Carvery. I could barely carry my plate back to the table and was heavy laden for the rest of the day. Great stuff. Ignite event in the evening with some of our youth.

This blog is gradually becoming my diary rather than a place of expressing thoughts, but at least it gives you readers an idea of what I am up to - busy but generally happy.

Hope you are all cheerful and happy. hopefully blast some thoughts out mid week. Go some brewing.

Vaya Co Dios

Long Time no Blog

Well what has happened in the last 11 days?!

Me and the Davies took London by storm.
club unity

It was great to be in London Village, a very different scene to our normal residency. The bar itself is located in the city area, far from any sense of night action. Also unless you know where it is or have a very keen eye, it is quite difficult to find. But the bar itself is very impressive with fish tanks in the walls and long centrally located bar, one issue you can't see the dance floor from the DJ booth, but hey you can't have fish in walls and a good booth.

After getting there at 8:30 and seeing where the place is, we popped off to find a banquette or two. After a nice relaxed meal with Linda and Mark we returned to Temple Bar to find the venue rammed. a venue busy by 10:00 what is going on.

Well the night went well, the first DJ (Mal I think was his name) played some mellow house to get the good vibes going and then we a cheese Dj Owain on his CD decks for the laydees - and boy did he play a set for the ladys! Then Dark Mavis had a bash on the Technics going down to a warm reception by most but with the usual "can you play some cheese, please" from the older/more traditional folk there. After much ear bashing from the punters we let Mr Chart Topper have a go again to end the preceedings.

An interesting night. Was really good to see some old friends there. Cheers to Linda, Leonna, Lizzie and Pella for popping along. Sorry I didn't get much chance to chat to you guys. oh yeah and cheers to the Greg-meister for letting us ring him at 3:20 in the morning so he could let us into his house and sleep in his living room.

Sunday we (Mark, Linda and Myself) went to this amazing place called "Starvin' Marvin's" a tradiational American Diner. Bottomless Coffee and Pancakes for Breakfast please.
Movie at Jodie's place on Sunday night was relaxing - Man On Fire. strange that title - there weren't actualy any men on fire in the film. But there was an interestingly located plastic explosive - you'll know if you have seen the film.

The rest of the week passed by very quickly.
No MM's Cell on Monday.
Bus was good on Tuesday, usual mayhem on first side and responable on the second side.
Wednesday I was in a very vague and not very productive mood - Cell I was just not focusing with.
Thursday travelled back to Redditch before my Grandads funeral.
Friday - well the Funeral went well, nice things were said about by Grandfather. The family got on well and I found out lots of interesting information about my family history - especially that my granddad was one of 11 children and most of the others are in the States. So it could be cool to meet up with some family over there - will be doing a little research into Herlihy family history.
Friday night - headed to House of the Open Door for the Friday night meeting. it was cool to see some friendly faces that I last saw at Celebrate Conference only a few weeks back and some even older ones.
Saturday - tried to fix a computer but ended up busting it even more - they won't be asking me again! then drove back to Cardiff and bought a BBQ and had Jodie, Phil, Laura and Huw round with Gary for a bit of munch and an X-men movie xtravaganza.
Sunday - Went to Woodies in the morning and then drove to Swansea to have a meal with my EZ guys/gals on their way back from the weekend away I missed due to the funeral. I love my EZ team. Thanks to Houllie 4 shouting us the meal too. hmmmm Rib Eye Steak. Then came back home and rested in the afternoon during the storm happening outside. Watched Point Break. Top Movie.

And thats a review of what I have been doing.
For all those readers out there,
Vaya Con Dios

My new sign off.

Health News

Visited the Doctor this morning - I should have gone 6 months ago but I really don't like Doctors - they are full of ill people, coughing and spluttering and sharing diseases.
And have a bit of examination and questioning the thing that has been worrying me for half a year turns out to be a terrible diet and rubbish eating pattern. So lots more fluids and proper meals for me now. no missing main meals and eating fast food - well reduced eating fast food.
I really haven't got into work this week, I have been sat here not really doing much, really struggling with motivation and urgency.
I got to get loads done this afternoon to make up for it.

Had an email today which has really confused me about what Catholics think about Mary and the Holy Spirit. Apparently the Holy Spirit is Mary's spouse and forever will be. It is completely off the wall for me to understand and so I think I'll give it to God to deal with and not worry about it to much, like it won't affect my Salvation or anything.

Got EZ36 prayer meeting tonight. Which I am really looking forward to. Going to be praying lots for my family after my Grandad dying. I love having a Christian Family here as they are being so supportive with everything that is going on. I love 'em.

right I got to get to the work I was talking about.

if you have time check out the forums on
xt3

so interesting chats and some cool people on there.

Commotion

Wednesday, some sad news

I recived a phone call off my mom this morning saying my granddad, who was in hospital, had died early this morning, aged 95.
My grandad was a great guy, he had such an interesting life and liked telling stories of his childhood in Ireland. He had 4 children, my mom and 3 boys. He lived to a good old age, and only really suffered the last year or so with major ill health, but he was lonely since losing nan 12 years ago next week. He would have also liked to go at the same time as the Pope - him being a dedicated Catholic.
I will miss him loads and he will not go unforgotten.

If any of you are of a praying disposition, some prayers offered for the Waldron/Herlihy family would be really appreciated.

To Granddad James Herlihy.

Monday after Celebrate Conference 2005

Well 12 days ago I left for Ilfracombe, Devon for the Celebrate conference with a long blonde streak running from forehead to neck in a Mohican stylee. I thought the hair style (if U can call it a style) was quite ironic (which I preceeded to tell everyone) - in that many people who wore a hair cut as stupid looking as this probably actually thought they looked quite cool. whereas I thought it looked more funny and humourous and that is how I wore it.
anyway enough about the hair.

Met up with the usual setup crowd of Andy G (Sir, chief, master and amazing father) and Phil( I drive a 4 by 4, but it's okay I live in Scotland) Dan (my lovely room-mate - girl and gadget magnet!), Julie (will do anything for anyone) Nicky (I will hug you to death you know), Rob (but I thought I did turn it down), Andy F (Spiderman and gymnast), Stu (I have some amazing wrenches for any possible purpose and I will tighten bolts so you will never be able to remove them again), Salv (I keep a rhythm, it's just way faster than you guys can play) and Keith (I will start work before you guys even wake up and I put up blacking out better than any man in this hall) - along with Enda (I can break you by looking at you, but I love you so thats just fine) and Peter (I will organise everything in my notebook and people will call me Enda all day!) with me creating the 13 setup team Disciples! Spent 3.5 days setting up a school hall and gym. And what a rig it was.

People who go to Celebrate often don't realise where they have their meetings is normally a school sports hall. I will try and get photos of before and after on da blog.

It is great before the conference as you have the same crew working away for many days in fellowship and prayer. Then U have the gradual arrivals of different communities coming to set up their rooms in the school - Sion Cross Purposes are great and friendly southern (mostly) bunch led by Clare and Matt and Martin and then you have the always jovial Youth Mission Team from Newcastle (soon to be my place of residence - possibly) led by Tony and Fr Dermot. Those guys are great fun - looking forward to hooking up with the YMT crew and maybe helping them in their youth accomodation centre.

Then suddenly Sunday comes about and all the punters turn up.

It was overall a good time - this year my role was to help the Steward chiefs Kirty Mac (an old friend, who talks from her heart) and Fr. Steve (but he's not a father) then I was helping Enda and Peter in the afternoons taking over the Caretaking of the school. I was less busy than previous years, having time to lie in in the morning but still help out at Mass. It left me with more time to do some youthwork around the school, but as much as I was around their was very few youth hanging out at the school with year. but had a chance to chat to a few locals about faith and dogs! Big up to "Starsky" the black Pitbull Labrador.

This year was also a bit unique as I actually chatted more to people my own age with 23-30ish group. this well was kinda interesting. Emily Hall (I'll start off my own stream then....and it's not a dating thing) and her crew of "just before middle-agers" had a few socials through out the week to try and bring together the uncatered for and often forgot about single and some non single age group. It was a bit difficult for me for interact intially with the guys that were in the group as they were all (I mean all) very different to the usual people I hang out with of this age group and I often ended up in silence as I struggled to find a common ground to build from, but after a deep chat with Emily, which I can't remember much of what it was about apart from it was challenging! I decided to give the group another go. I managed to get to another one of the socials (after being on the same beach as them and not finding them and missing a bring and share meal) and hey, it was a little better - at least Em kept me company, it was just a little difficult as I found I couldn't really add to the conversation and when I did I seemed to kill the conversation! Oh well it's probably me being paranoid, but it was great to hear testimony of a few of the guys there. I think I will stick with youth workers and clubbers, I don't tend to kill conversation so much.

It was great this year to get more time to speak to people this time, and got to know alot more people and chat to proper adults to about the stuff I am involved in and about Mercy Ships. It was funny on the first night as Sue Whitehead - love her - got me up on stage on the first night infront of everyone - to give me an easter egg to thank me for all the work I do and to say I won't be there next year because of Mercy Ships - no exageration over 60 people asked me about Mercy Ships and was able to encourage them.

It was great chatting to the permanent Stewards loads, hanging out with John (Drum and Bass Massive), Ron (Can i borrow your BMX?) and Alex (Beer sneaker!) and Becky (I rule, don't argue) - check out www.ezekielproject.com also Esther (Miss Latino dancing craziness) and Bori (I will smile all day if you like it or not) funny foreigners (in the nicest way!) Budi for teaching me about Catholism (none of which I understood) and Alex(2) for being a dude.

Then just as suddenly as the party started 6 days passed and it was time for everyone to go home. Then the mass 8.5 hours of getting every packed down and on the lorry. rushed, yes. Hungry, yes. tired, very. but done dusted and then Chinese food feast to end it all. Celebrate over for another year.

Celebrate 2005 brought up many issues for me in my faith this year. It is strange how you can act around a group of people (1500 people) one way as you know you only see them once a year and act completely different around people you spend the rest of your life with. At Celebrate I act like a complete tart and come across as all confident (sometimes/much of the time arrogant) and I also drink way more in that one week than I do in 6 months normally. Why is that? How can you be two people?
I was really challenged by this on the final night of Celebrate by my friend, Lizzie. Cheers Lizzie.

Maybe a little challenge for all of us.

Yeah, I found it a little lonely at Celebrate this year. I got on with all the people I worked with really well and I am so glad I had time to spend with them (the setup team and the stewards), I just found it hard to create great friendships with people I will only see once a year, which makes me think about perhaps going to more Charismatic Catholic events thoughout the year. Walsingham and Youth 2000 or Bright Lights perhaps. Perhaps it was lonely as I missed my EZ36 (www.ez26.com) and Reload (www.reload-uk.com) crew. To be honest I don't really know what was wrong with me this year, perhaps it was the realisation I can't get on with everyone.

Keep it safe boys and girls.