Just a quick post to say I’m off on my travels.  Today, I’m flying to from Aberdeen to NYC via London.  I’ll then be travelling around, going to Albany, Toronto, Niagara, Harrisburg, Philidelphia, Washington DC and back to NYC for a couple of days.

See ya all on the 10th of June.  Toodlepip!

I’m going to start off by saying what a gorgeous day for day 3 of the festival! Just like last year- maybe the festival brings sunshine? I spent a few hours at the High Street gig today, which took place in front of the Ballhouse. Off the top of my head, I saw…

Dance Zone International
Can’t remember much of this as I only caught the tail end!

The Locals
Three people in a band put together for the festival. Despite one of the guitarists arriving late, they put on a good show performing Sheryl Crow’s version of Sweet Child O’ Mine (brilliant), an Eva Cassidy song and Misery Business by Paramore. Jenna Morrow (lead singer) was spot on.

The Worry Beads
I’d already checked these guys out online and was pretty impressed with them. They did a good job today performing bluesy rock (which I seem to be in to right now). Definitely a band to watch out for

Rachael Baird
A local musician who performed acoustically. Another great singer. She performed some of her own songs as well as a KT Tunstall tune and fab version of She’s Electric by Oasis.

Song Shop
A dance group which a wee cousin of mine took part in. They started off with Mamma Mia which really got the crowd going.

Lost In Audio
I was heading off around this time but I caught a little of their set. What can I say? They were loud! I liked what I heard but had the feeling I’d been out in the sun too long so went home.

The only criticism I have of the day is related to disabled access. I had my mum and my gran with me today, who is in a wheelchair. This comment isn’t directed towards the organisers of the festival- in fact the officials were extremely helpful in getting my gran a place right at the front of the stage area . It’s directed towards whoever created the pavements in Montrose. We had difficultly getting the chair over some of the ramps when crossing the road- not an ideal situation. Oh, and there’s the fact that the toilets are located down a hill, off the High Street. Sure it’s easy enough getting to the toilets but getting the chair back up the hill- nightmare. Sort this out please.

Sadly, I won’t be doing any of the Sunday gigs because I’m flying off to America for a holiday. I will be wearing my Montrose Music Festival t-shirt though, so I’ll be spreading the word. It’s been another fantastic day in terms of gigs so a big thanks to the organisers once more.

Here’s to Montrose Music Festival 2010!

This evening, I ventured to a Deacon Blue gig at the Town Hall in Montrose, Scotland. The gig marked the start of the 2009 Montrose Music Festival and what a start it was.

Before I even got in to the gig, one thing I really like was the lack of time it took me to travel to the venue. None of this 2.5 hour drive to Glasgow malarkey- 10 minutes from leaving the house to arriving at the hall. That’s the way gigs should be. When I did arrive, the queue was tiny (not what I’m used to) and it was a gorgeous summer evening. Considering I’m in Scotland, I’m not exactly used to that either.

One thing that struck me when I got inside was how relaxed everyone was. I could easily have had front row if I wanted but the hall was roasting hot, even as I walked in. People were generally just standing round the edge of the floor, chatting. This was the first gig I went to alone so admittedly I felt a little self-concious having no one to talk to. Nevermind, the downtime gave me a chance to update Twitter and catch-up on tweets.

The first band on were from Dundee (yay!) and were called The Descartes. They’re an indie/rock band which I enjoyed although I realised that if I was going to last the whole evening, I’d have to move back. Where I was standing, the music was too loud, and it’s not like me to say something like that.

The next band up were a Glasgow-based band called The Fortunate Sons. Again, I really like their music too. Their final song, “Last Train” was great and I think it got everyone in the mood to boogy.

There was then an announcement saying that the bar would close at 9.30pm (what?!) and Deacon Blue would come on at that time. That meant there was a pretty boring 40 minute break. I’m not really sure why they closed the bar then? Given the sweltering heat it seemed a bit foolish. Then again, I don’t know if that was just a joke to try and get people to buy more alcohol. The bar was the place that was selling water as well so I doubt they would have deprived people of that.

Deacon Blue appeared on stage at 9.30pm are were just fantastic. I’m not sure exactly what song they kicked off with (need to get my hands on a setlist). Suddenly I was very glad that I hadn’t chosen to stand at the very front- Ricky Ross soaked the front row with water 2 songs in (ha ha). The highlight of the evening for me was definitely “Real Gone Kid”. I don’t know many Deacon Blue songs (although that’s going to change) but I knew that one. The audience went totally nuts for that- amazing atmosphere. The song kept going on and on thanks to the crowd- brill . Other fab songs of the evening were “Queen of the New Year”, “Fergus Sings The Blues”, “Chocolate Girl”, “Dignity” and “Twist and Shout”. The band went off stage at 11pm but the crowd went seriously insane for an encore (if you were there, you’ll know what I mean- who knew Montrosians could make that much of a racket, eh?) and they came back and played until 11.15pm. Slight aside here- I generally thought the curfew for gigs was 10.45pm or maybe 11pm? (don’t get me wrong- I’m not complaining ).

Like I said, I didn’t know many of their songs before I went to see them but they are really good live. They’ve got a new fan here and I’ll certainly be getting some of their stuff to put on my iPod.

General comments about the venue: it was too hot. That’s probably the only criticism of the whole evening. Normally at gigs, if you want out to get a bit of air, you have to fight through the crowd. Here, it was different. Everybody was really relaxed and didn’t bunch up too tightly. There was no need to keep your place by standing with your elbows out (know what I mean?). It was a nice atmosphere-really friendly.

What can I say to sum up? Deacon Blue put on a fantastic, loud show (including some great banter) and the support acts were really good too. £30 well spent. To think I wasn’t even sure about going because I was going on my own. The show was a brilliant way to kick off the festival. To all those going to the 2nd gig: have fun!

This is exactly the kind of thing Montrose needs. I’m not the sort of person who enjoys nightclubs where the so-called music consists of constant thumping which gives you a headache. I like my music played live, by talented musicians. A big thank you to the Montrose Music Festival committee for organising this and here’s to the rest of the festival!

PS- Could you maybe book Bryan Adams to appear next year too?

Pretty lights huh?  I was much closer but moved back because of the heat!

Mood : bouncy   Music : Chocolate Girl  by  Deacon Blue

Lots of stuff happening this week!

This evening, I’m off to see Deacon Blue as part of Montrose Music Festival. They’re being supported by Descartes and the Fortunate Sons so it should be quite a good night. It’s nice to have a big local gig for a change so I won’t need to do a lot of travelling.

On Saturday, I’ll be attending day 3 of Montrose Music Festival hopefully watching the High Street show- there’s a ton of different acts on stage all day. I think one of my little cousins is even making an appearance in the afternoon.

Finally, on Sunday, I’ll be jetting off on my holidays. I’m flying from Aberdeen to London and then out to New York, before beginning a small tour of the USA and Canada.

That’s it. It’s over folks. I have finished my degree. Friday the 22nd May 2009 was my last day as a studying undergraduate student

Friday was a pretty scary day- it was the day of the Final Year Show where all 4th year students in the school of Computing and Creative Technologies had to present whatever they had done for their honours project. Of course, you should all know by know that I created the Wiimote Interactive Gallery.

I was scheduled to set-up all my equipment in the big lab between 9-10am in the morning. This included my laptop as the Bluetooth dongle I required refused to be installed on the university network (I have no idea why this was the case- at home I just plugged it in straight out of the box and it worked). After setting up, I had a *lot* of time to kill- I was given the last presentation slot at 1.40pm. I thought it was supposed to be ladies first ? Perhaps they thought they were leaving the best project ’til last and were waiting for a big finish? Here’s hoping nobody was disappointed.

For the best part of the day, I hung out in Whitespace. At one point, I was lying across a couple of office chairs, feet up, listening to my iPod. The previous evening, I had recorded myself doing my presentation and stuck it on my iPod to try and get it into my head. Nervously, I went upstairs to give my presentation at 1.40pm. I barely took a breath during the first part: I was talking far too fast and I knew it. Difficult to slow down though. Towards the end, I relaxed a little and thought that it went a little better. During the question period at the end of it, my supervisors asked if I was up for putting my Whiteboard on the projector screen, making it much larger (and better).

Previously, I had considered this however, the projector screens in the big lab are massive and there was no way in hell I would have been able to reach the top of them to calibrate the board (c’mon, no height jokes please). My supervisors swiped a projector from one of the other labs which could be adjusted to suit my height (or lack of) and I set-up up my whiteboard with that.

At 2pm, following my presentation, the rest of the students appeared and both the public and the invited guests came in to view the projects. In hindsight, my project demonstration was much better when used with a projector as people could see that I didn’t need to have a computer directly in front of me in order to create a whiteboard: it could be projected onto any flat surface and it would work. Of course, this is actually an advantage of the this type of whiteboard- if a commercial whiteboard gets damaged, its game over.

The afternoon portion of my day went pretty well- I spoke to a lot of people including other tutors and visitors from local companies. It was exhausting though- the lab got really warm. I’m not sure what temperature it reached but I was red in the face and downed several bottle of water/juice in the space of 2 hours. By the end, my throat was really stinging but I guess that was because of the heat and the fact that I had talked solidly for over 2 hours.

After all the hard work, I and some of the Web Design and Development crew headed to a place called the Marble Slab in Dundee which specialises in ice cream. To celebrate the end of our degrees, we purchased an ice cream cake which was topped with oreos and cookie dough. I have to say- it was just divine. Really amazing. In fact just writing about it now makes me want to go by another one *drools*.

I think I wandered off to catch my train sometime around 7pm and it was a beautiful summers evening (or maybe I was still really warm from being in the lab).

I’m not really sure how to feel about the end of uni, as in my case, its not the end- I’ll be going back to do a Masters in September if all goes to plan. Its going to be weird when I return as most people I know won’t be there. Right now, I’m just looking forward to the simmer, having some time off, going to the beach, going on holiday, seeing some great bands and generally having fun.

More blogs about my escapades to follow

Mood : chipper   Music : 30 Rock

Credits go to my friend Kat for sending me this funny wee email. Here goes-

Can’t eat pork,
Swine flu…

I believe that leaves chocolate and ice cream
Remember -”STRESSED” spelled backwards is “DESSERTS”

It’s official- I’ve completed my dissertation entitled “Wiimote Interactive Gallery”. The whole process has taken around 4 months but 2 programs, 7 experiments, 144 tests, 17000 words and 91 pages later, it’s over.

I fully intended to hand it on Thursday so I could have at least had Friday off but no. I arrived at uni on Thursday at about 2pm and thought I’d have enough time to print it, get it bound and submit it. I thought wrong.

Cue me sitting in Whitespace ’til 7.20pm, sorting out all the pages. What happened? Well, money had to be put onto the printing account. The only place to do that is the library, except the machine on the 1st floor was broken so I had to walk to the 3rd floor. By the time I’d sorted that out I realised I wasn’t going to make the binding deadline (which is 4pm each day) so I stopped rushing around and thought that I’d just get everything ready for the following day.

The dissertation had to be printed twice so obviously, it cost a fair bit. The coloured pages had to be printed in Whitespace and then inserted into the document (apparently I would have been charged £54 if I’d printed my dissertation in colour. No thanks- rip off). The printing account ran out of money on several occasions so I had to go back and forth to the library. Oh, and some of the wrong pages kept printing out. The black pages were going by the actual page number however the coloured pages were going by the number that was in the footer, ignoring i-vii. Weird.

Inserting the coloured pages took forever but finally, I finished up at 7.20pm, placed the copies in my locker and headed for the station. I was aiming for a train leaving at 7.45pm but when I got to the station, surprise, surprise, it had been delayed, so I was sat there ’til just after 8pm.

Everything was sorted out on Friday morning and that’s it over and done with. Now onto the academic paper and poster for Monday. In 6 days, BSc Computing is over. In 15 days, I’m flying to New York- yay!