23 Jun

Its 2 years since James nearly killed me. And 7 other people. Including himself.

That  title is an exaggeration. Almost.

Anyway, 5 months since I last blogged… huh. I’ve been busy.

I bought carpet!

And a fridge!

And lots of wood, and bricks, and some door handles, and a sink. And a bunch of other things (I can’t be bothered listing everything). They all came neatly packaged in a big a thing called ‘a house’. Well most of it did, I had to later add some of those things. Ikea is too close.

The whole process was pretty  straitforward/insanely over complicated depending on how you look at it… offers… offer accepted… mortgage…mortgage accepted… sit and wait for contracts to sign… then wait for other side to sign contracts… encourage lawyer to annoy other lawyer to ask his client to hurry up… get a call… get some keys… walk up to my own home and walk in. Fun.

Now I have a room full of my junk, and several other rooms full of board games and computers. And this slightly-zoomed-in wonderful view, right behind the computer i type this on:
It's like those vampire books, except good.

 

And some super unfriendly cats that keep staring at me… then running away. Or hissing. There were photos, but apparently they can remotely destroy any photos taken of them.

 

So, I’ve been working on making the place as mine as I can… though I still haven’t really decorated. There’s furniture… mostly black furniture… some’s brown! And then there’s the board game stuff…

Most of my board games. Most…

And, the table I spent 2 months building:

Black dot is a Carcasonne Meeple, for scale. I had no bananas.

Whole thing is modular and expandable… 2m x 1m, up to 2.75x1m. Ish. I’m gonna replace the green felt with some sort of starscape for space games, and the little square things work as dice trays. Legs are detachable, so it can be armchair height, or dining room table height. It does, however, weigh a ton.

Most work I’ve ever done with wood, and I had splinters. Owies.

I’m considering adding things to make it extend automagically, and… other… fun things. Possibly involving touchscreens.

Other things I’ve been doing involve the mystical Ikea, like this lampshade:

Its not on fire.

It comes in lots of bits and its cable is WAY too long. (this is an older photo, things have been tidied up since then.) It shrinks into a sphere when you pull the cord. And makes things darker. Like mood lighting, cause I haven’t rigged the lights into computers… yet.

So, here I am, wondering one main thing… how to decorate. All of my rooms are off white or… whatever this colour is:

DSC_0250

I think its kind of green. And most of furniture is brown/black So, I’m looking for ideas, ideas which are appropriate for me, Dave. Not a teenage girl. Nor a 27 yr old woman. But yes, good ideas are welcome. Or wall furnishings. Like pictures.

As mentioned in my last blog (though no one answered the question) the answer was R2-D2. Obviously.

And thus, I’m done.

Dave.

 

17 Jan

Lookout! I don’t know why… but do it anyway.

So, after my rant in December about printers, I’ve now used a printer in 2014 more than i ever did in 2013… and just to annoy me it took about half an hour for the printer to work… grr. Evil lumps of stupidity. And plastic. but mostly stupid.

Anyway, houses… today I viewed a few places… 2 stood out as particularly bad… The first, the one I got up at 8 for, was an apartment about the size of a badminton court. The living room couldn’t fit a sofa… I’ve no idea how anyone could live in that small space, or pay so much for that.

The other… someone decided, at some point in its history, to remodel the entire inside building. they moved the bathroom, the kitchen, and added a conservatory, where one wall was basically just leaning on the outside wall of next doors extensions. The cistern for the old toilet was still visible behind the boiler, and the floor below the boiler was about to collapse. Then, despite the agents assurances the wiring had been redone recently, found three broken sockets, and several loose hanging cables. The walls looked like Iron man had used them as punching bags, with fist sized holes.

As I don’t want to die in my new home, I don’t think I’ll go for that one.

I am getting closer to finding a place though, hopefully will have some good news this week 🙂

And with that, I leave you with 2 things – a question:

If you were a robot, which would you be? Find out my answer, next time!

And a red panda.

D'aaawww

Dave.

31 Dec

This blog is not about puppies.

Hes tired and hes typing.

That may not be a good thing.

So…

Hi!

its been about 3 months since I last typed something here.

Amazingly, not a lot has happened, so you might be thinking you’ve started reading this for no reason, and nothing will come of this, but, I fear, your pessimism is badly placed! Something will come of your visiting this page today, I assure you! And so, to the business of entertaining you, and your fellow human beings! And the 2 cats that might read this! LETS GO.

House hunting is HARD. Mostly cause i have to do the whole financing thing first, but once thats done its just hard to see a good place to go viewing at the right price. There’s the ‘obviously need work’ ones… the ‘holy crap you made that look big but its obviously too small for a kitten’ ones, the “wait… where is exactly is that… oh.” ones, the “that’s a lot of flags….” ones, the “TIGER. THE NEIGHBOUR HAS A TIGER” ones, and finally the “I can’t see anything wrong with this, whats wrong with it, oh that’s a peace wall” ones.

Though I’m sure i’ll find a place sooner or later… Preferably one without an impending doom, and not overly pink. So very many of them are very pink…

Moving on… I have minions! Ish. For a bit. Not really. I’m training people. And making sure they do things right. In work, not other places… though if you consider yourself my minion let me know and I’ll make sure to treat you as you expect!

My obsession with boardgames has not diminished, much to my friends joy/consternation, and i now own 47 base games, with a few variants too bringing them to over 50. If anyone would like to organize a night to play said games, heres a list, and I am always ready to play 🙂

Since my last blog I turned 28, and that has led to absolutely no differences in my life whatsoever. So, next big thing…

Hmm..

I got a new phone! Yes, this seems to happen very often but this time, this time its different. This time its a Sony Z3 Compact. This time, it doesn’t need charged very often. This time… its awesome. It doesn’t bend.

A few things I found out in the last month:

  • Apparently I’ve mellowed out from being absolutely weird 5 years ago to just being a bit weird.
    • but the better kind of weird where my weirdnesses are actually useful.
  • Being polite is confusing to some people…
  • Steam trains are loud at 9AM..
  • I don’t know how to be more excited about episode 7 than I am already…
  • I can stay awake much later than i thought and still be functional…
  • Cats aren’t as evil as I once thought..
  • Tea isn’t that bad when its made in the right way…
  • I kinda want to build a snowman so you won’t get very far singing that song at me.
  • Its apparently normal to own a printer.

Ok, that last point, Printers. Printers are a horrible creation, a necessary evil of the pre internet age, that are only required by the unfortunate few. You see, I have printed around about 10 sheets of paper in the last 2 years, and I expect to print even less next year. Now, if i was to set up the printer I own, but is currently boxed up in the attic, it would cost me a good half hour to get working, another x amount of time to get ink for, and then theres paper. On the other hand if I were to print those few pages a year in work, or some other printing location it would cost less, take less time, and therefore be better. And thus, I have no need for a printer. Its not like I spend a chunk of my time printing photos of cats and sticking them up around my computer, or beside my bed….

Ok, so now i’ve un-necessarily argued against owning a printer, I think thats enough of a rant for tonight.

Good something*!

 

*Where something is a day, night, morning, cat, evening, or otherwise. I don’t know what kind of semantics pattern you have if you sleep 16 hours a day.

22 Sep

The back end of nowhere is kinda pretty

Its been a while!

Its September, the month of… something. What normally happens in September? Schools start back… but I don’t care about that anymore. OH. No… wait… I don’t care about holiday prices dropping… OH!I DO care about all my friends being in the country again! Except those that fled to England. Or Scotland. Or, in one case, America. Did I really scare you that much? I’m sorry! Come back! I won’t do it again!

 

Anyway…. today is the 22nd of September. Or the 23rd… if you’re reading it tomorrow. Or in Europe! Or further east! But more likely tomorrow… This means it is now 3 weeks till my 28th birthday, and I’ll come up with something to do then. Maybe. Its a tuesday, so… yeah.

So what did I do over the past few months? I did several things. lets go in reverse order, so I can remember them…

I got a promotion! I’m now a ‘Senior Software Engineer’. Appropriate as I’m about to turn 28…

I moved to Belfast! Again. This is likely explained better below. My dad no longer has a manse…(yay promotion!) so we get to live in the city now! A small apartment…

I moved to Greenisland again! For 3 weeks. That means parents, and that means less fun 🙁

I moved out of Belfast! Ruth came home and wanted her house back 🙁

The Word weekend happened! I have to do the audio… I should get round to that tomorrow… but it was awesome!

I bought a Drone! Its currently out of action after a… let’s call it an emergency landing. But it’ll be fixed up soon!

We started a Second RPG group! they were much faster than the other group… just saying…

Tech Camp happened! It was brilliant. I’m tired and running out of words…

Loughbrickland connect happened! People were shocked and amazed at my ability to get internet in the back end of nowhere… but I did! Kids were brilliant and it sucked to leave for the next thing… which is above…

July happened! I don’t remember July much… nor June. What happened in those 2 months? Did i get my car in June? No? It was May? Ok then. I got a new car! Its a DS3. Its not a girls car. Its awesome.

I went back in time! Wait. No. I’m not supposed to mention that. It hasn’t happened yet.

 

 

Smile, you’re not turning 28. 🙂

Dave.

 

 

 

Oh, yes, the title. I’ve spent a lot of time in the back end of nowhere. And managed to get signal there! I took photos. They were pretty. I’ll put them somewhere.

3 Jun

Edge of the Empire: Its a saga. An awkward confusing saga.

Hello!

So, as some of you are aware, I, am a massive geek, and the geekiest thing I do is lead 5 people through an adventure of their own imaginations in the Star Wars universe.

Seriously its fun, you should do it. I can help.

This is known as an RPG, and I’m the GM, or Game Master, if you like using whole words. The most popular RPG is Dungeons and Dragons, but this is a star wars version, known as Edge of The Empire. The players control characters and I control the environment, and dice make decisions on anything uncertain which is known as skill checks. So, a bunch of smugglers, bounty hunters, and a droid, are in this particular game. They each have their own elaborate backstory, motivations and obligations that they MUST abide by, and complete the objective of the adventure. If they want to do anything in secret, the players communicate with me over facebook.

I’ve recorded the last 2 sessions, but the first session needs some explanation:

The initial player characters:

Kith – Played by Vicki, a bothan bounty hunter and owner of the ship.

Nate Draan – Played by Dave Luke, a human smuggler

R5-T16 – Played by Ryan, An astromech droid with a few… modifications.

These 3 characters met in the first episode and managed to get a mission from a Twi-lek called Reom to hunt down a lost Seperatist ship from the end of the Clone wars, believed crashed in the outer rim. They were forced to flee the station they got the mission from after some entanglements with other treasure hunters, but did obtain the Droid they needed to find the location of the ship.

Characters introduced:

Chenni – played by Gerard, a Wookie, An angry wookie.

Valo – played by Matt, A Chiss Bounty Hunter.

Episode 2 can be found here:

Beyond The Rim Ep2

And the next episode, here:

Beyond The Rim Episode 3

There’ll be another session soon….

Dave.

13 May

A plea. A campaign if you will.

“You’re not pretty enough.”

“You’re too complicated”

“What even IS that thing?”

“Eww… vampires”

These are just some of the reasons given to not interact with them. They do not deserve this, they are just as worthy as the others, and deserve just as much love. They are misunderstood, and slotted into that ‘weird’ category to be brought out only with weird people.

But they just want to be brought out and enjoyed like the others, instead, they just sit there, in a dark room, effectively useless.

 

Did you know, 50% of my boardgames haven’t even been played? There’s hours of fun sitting in boxes that are lucky to have been opened… some haven’t even had their components sorted!

Theres a wealth of awesome worlds and universes to create stories in, and they’re just sitting there, empty and unused!

I don't love the puns. SO MANY HORRIBLE PUNS. but you might!
A universe of sheep! And Puns! Whats NOT to love?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A plethora of interesting aliens and monsters to befriend or kill!

Lovecraft is weird.
Like black men! (You shouldn’t kill black men)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or this friendly critter!

Seriously, its a horror game.
Hes so lovable, and not terrifying at all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ultimately, he fears for his games. That they’ll grow lonely and unloved…

This fecker cost me £12, I'd like to actually use him at some point.
This little guy just wants to blow up a tie fighter… won’t you let him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TNG, season 4, episode 5. Just FYI.
Its like that episode, where the only thing in the universe is the enterprise. And its just sitting there, with Beverley going mad… He just wants to blow up a Romulan! BUT THERE ARE NO ROMULANS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They can't, they're plastic.
If these tanks could cry, it would be tears of loneliness. And tininess. They’re very small.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So please, consider playing the complicated games, and join Dave on a day hes going to organize at some point to play each of them. Or he’ll be kept awake at night by 15 sobbing board games.*

 

Dave.

 

 

 

*Don’t do the math on how much 15 board games are worth. Seriously. If you do… don’t double it. And definitely don’t rob my house. They’re not worth much second hand.

29 Apr

Something about a long time ago.

Hello! With todays interesting announcement relating to the greatest Space Opera of all time* and with my… slightly excessive** knowledge of the expanded Star Wars universe, I thought I’d make a post about this. Basically, theres a TON of stuff in the expanded universe that is highly relevant to the upcoming episode 7, (though a massive chunk of it will prob be ignored/abandoned) and it *MIGHT* help with understanding today’s casting announcement. This is a brief overview of the politics and gossip like things over the 30 years after return of the jedi. Its not that funny, just informative, so don’t bother reading if you’re not interested.***

Within the star wars universe time is measured as ABY, After Battle Of Yavin. We start 4 Years ABY.****

4 ABY
Galactic Politics:
Immediately after the death star 2 explodes the Rebel Alliance and Imperial star fleets are in disarray. The alliance won the Battle of Endor, destroying or capturing the majority of the imperial fleet stationed there, though a significant portion of the imperial fleet makes it way back to secure imperial space. The Rebel Alliance suffered significant loses however and are effectively on the back foot on the galactic scale.

Word of the Emperor’s death, Darth Vader’s death, and the major loss spreads throughout the galaxy, though the empire is still very strong. The Alliance forms the New Republic, as their new official government. Many more planets join the New Republic, though still less than 10% of the galaxy by 6.5ABY, bolstering the fleet through key shipyards.

Known Character ‘Drama’:
After Han and Leia’s little discussion on Endor while the death star explodes, Leia gets a bit busy establishing the New Republic, so their budding relationship gets a bit sidelined, as Leia is jetted off to the far corner of the galaxy on a diplomatic mission within hours. Han also had various responsibilities leading a battle group for the New Republic, with Chewie by his side.
Luke got to work establishing a New Jedi Order, with various missions destroying remnants of the Sith, and attempting to train apprentices.
C3PO stays with Leia, and R2D2 stays with Luke.

6 ABY
Galactic Politics:
The empire fail to take advantage of the weak rebel fleet after Endor, and soon Coruscant falls to the New Republic, with massive civilian and Rebel casualties, as the empire release a virus targeting nonhumans as they flee, and the imperial fleet is bolstered by a Super Star Destroyer, buried in Coruscant, which blasts its way through to flee into space. The virus is ‘cured’ within 2 years. More key planets join the New republic, and the Empire continues to struggle to find commmanding leadership, with the leader who lost Coruscant effectively denounced as insane.

Various warlords and groups have split off from the struggling Empire, taking star destroyers and even planets with them.

Known Character ‘Drama’:
Princess Leia continues to lead the government, though suffers various assassination attempts. Her relationship with Han grows more distant, and she considers marrying a Prince from the Hapes cluster for political reasons, but Han intervenes in typical fashion*****, Leia realizes she loves him, and they marry within the year.
Luke continues to hone his Jedi powers and looking for old surviving Jedi.

9 ABY
Galactic Politics:
The Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn, the only non-human to attain Admiral rank in the imperial military, returns from a long term mission in the unknown region, and reunites the empire around him. A master tactician, he leads an imperial campaign against the new Republic, and does extremely well, blockading Coruscant. He is ultimately assassinated by his own bodyguard, right before a battle. Without his tactical brilliance the imperial fleet is in disarray, and the empire shrinks further.
A clone of Palpatine also tries to recover control, but is defeated by Luke.******

The Hutts attempt to build a superweapon, which is basically a death star – but just the laser and the basics, designed by the original deathstar designer. It explodes on its first use*******

Known Character ‘Drama’:
Leia and Han continue their marriage, and Leia becomes pregnant with twins. She gives birth to a girl and boy, Jaina and Jacen Solo, and then she becomes pregnant again, with another boy, who she names after her father, Anakin.
After defeating Palpatines Clone, Luke founds the New Jedi Order, and begins training Jedi. Some turn evil, and are defeated inturn.

BIG JUMP
19 ABY
Galactic Politics:
Empire is now known as “The Imperial Remnant” down to a marginal group of planets, still under martial law, though a group of Moffs run a council to manage civil affairs. With no major conflicts in 5 years, a truce was negotiated, and the galactic civil war was ended.

Known Character ‘Drama’:
Leia, and all her children are force sensitive, and have started training.
Luke goes on a mission******** with the former emperors hand, Mara Jade, whos turned to the light side. He falls in love, and they marry soon after, and have a child.

25 ABY
Galactic Politics:
After several years of peace, an unknown alien invades from another galaxy, called the Yuuzhan Vong. They are not seen in the force, and they use biological technology, that is extremely effective against the New republic technology, and light saber resistant. They are effectively unstoppable for the first stages of the war, fanatics that all life is inferior, and nonbiological technology is an abomination. They turn people into effective slave zoimbies, which they use as cannon fodder in battle.
The New Republic, bloated and slow struggles to respond, barely managing to cope with refugees, and has few victories.
The New Jedi Order attempt lead missions against the Vong, and take many losses.

Known Character ‘Drama’:
Han, Anakin and Chewy are on a planet at the forefront of the invasion, Sernpidal. The Yuuzhan Vong drop a moon on the planet, a tactic they use many times. Han joins the evacuation effort, packing the falcon to the brim, but chewy and anakin are the last to get to the ship. Chewy throws the young anakin onto the boarding ramp and Han is forced to leave as the moon crushes his friend. Distraught, Han takes years to accept the events of that day.
Luke, Mara, Jaina and Jacen lead many missions against the Vong.

27 ABY
Galactic Politics:
Coruscant falls to the Yuuzhan Vong, taking with it a significant chunk of the senate. The New Republic gives the Jedi more power to defend the republic.
They begin terraforming it into the center of their religious system, modeling it after their homeworld.

The Yuuzhan Vong have developed a new creature that hunts Jedi, extremely effectively. A group of Jedi hunt down and kill the queen of these creatures, and prevent any more being bred. Anakin Solo dies, saving his brother and friends in the assault.

28 ABY
Galactic Politics:
The New Republic and the Imperial remnant reform to fight together against the Vong, and form the Galactic Alliance effectively fighting back against the Vong with the first major victories.

29 ABY
Galactic Politics:
Luke and Jacen eliminate the Yuuzhan Vong leaders. The Jedi bring back a living planet from the Unknown Regions, which they use to negotiate a ceasefire, and the Galactic Alliance are allowed to retake various core world planets, in return for the living planet. 365 trillian sentient dead, the war is over.

30 ABY

Jaina and Jacen are the key war heroes, with Jaina declared the “Sword of the Jedi” as a fantastic pilot and lightsaber warrior, and Jacen basically becoming a key Jedi Master on the council.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–
And this is about when the Episode 7 appears to be set 30 or so years after Jedi, which is problematic. It *could* be that 7 is set before the war, when Chewy was alive, but this is unlikely. Generally the Yuuzhan Vong isn’t liked very much so they may just removed that storyline, or Chewy will be brought in for the first few bits or in flashbacks.

In any case the majority of the expanded universe will be changed, with the best guess being that Jaina********* and Jacen are the only new characters likely to stay, which might be disappointing. Maybe. A lack of Mara Jade is concerning.

Next year will be interesting in any case though.**********

Dave***********

*Not open to debate. Shut up. NO. WALL-E IS NOT A SPACE OPERA.
**Also not open to debate. Its really not useless. Are you reading this? Yes? NOT USELESS.
***I’m not ALWAYS funny. I just look it.
****If you can’t cope with this nerdiness, stop reading. Seriously. It gets worse.
*****he kidnaps her. Seriously. When I did that, it didn’t work. If it would work for you, let me know, I’ll see what I can arrange.
******So many CLONES. This is the only clone story I included here, but the empire seems to clone everybody, just in case. At one point Luke is attacked by an evil clone of himself…
*******Funniest star wars book in existence. They use big dumb bugs to build it that get distracted every 5 minutes. Its a bloody miracle it actually was built straight.
********GUESS WHAT?! MORE CLONES!!!
*********She seriously can’t be anyone else…
**********I just realized I’ll be 29 when this comes out. Gah. Also, SO MANY GOOD MOVIES NEXT YEAR.
***********SO MANY ASTERISKS.

11 Sep

Summer – The other bits.

Other than a trip to Japan, other significant things happened this summer… I started a new job!

That’s right, I don’t watch youtube for a living anymore! I now make software for card machines in shops, for a company called Merchant Warehouse. We primarily make it for US machines, which are bigger and more capable than our card machines. I think if you use a machine in some stores where it says our company name on the screen, then you’re using software I helped fix a few weeks ago, though unless you’re on the east coast of the US, ythats unlikely. I could break our devices if I wanted to here though…

Before you ask, yes, I’m enjoying it, and its a definite step up.

OTHER THINGS.

For a few days in August I helped out in Loughbrickland Connect. So many things to say about this, but its late and I’ve already written an extensive blog tonight… so all I’ll say was: great people, great kids, a great experience, and a great God.

Next….

I moved out! I now live somewhere else in Belfast… Its great living by oneself. One can really start calling oneself one when oneself has no one around to stop one saying one a lot.

Lastly, I was at the Word weekend again! Another great weekend in another random place with another great speaker and more great people.

Another thing about living with oneself is I’m now supposed to do some form of organized abode temperature increasing event…. hmmm…

OH.

Yeah.

I did some abseiling for SUNI with some friends from church and SU. Please donate! https://www.justgiving.com/Dave-Stothers

 

11 Sep

Here, I should probably post something… Japan – The final Blog.

So, many things have happened since I last posted, and I should prob finish the Japan posts.. so, here we go!

Firstly… heres James in Japanese Pyjamas.

...yup.
…yup.

Moving on swiftly, on the Sunday we went to the church associated with the OMF center in Tokyo, called the Chapel Of Adoration. The entire service was in Japanese, so we sang the first verse then hummed the rest of the songs… we did get to see one of the missionary families again, and I think the kids really enjoyed that.

Fishing Net lights in the chapel of adoration.
Fishing Net lights in the chapel of adoration.

The church was founded by the family of a racing driver, who used his money after his death to establish the church. Its not very big, but again, the members seem very dedicated.

From here we went on to the Edo Museum, which covers the history of Tokyo.

Amy was oddly happy to be locked in this box....
Amy was oddly happy to be locked in this box….

Tokyo used to be called Edo…

Hence the name of the museum…

It was pretty informative over the politics and general lifestyle of Tokyo since it took over being capital from Kyoto, though it was pretty vague about the mid thirties to late 40s.

It also covered this:

DSC02209…which seems very relevant considering Tokyo claimed this:

DSC02303

Following the museum most of the team who wanted to climbed a skyscraper, did so, and marvelled at the awesome size of Tokyo:

DSC02246

Seriously its huge.
Seriously its huge.

Meanwhile, Robbie and I toured an electronics shop that went on forever… and I bought a laptop for 30% cheaper than it would’ve cost at home. 😀 Robbie wisely resisted the temptation.

Finally  there was dinner, and glorious sleep.

And then I woke up with the worst cold I’d ever had, and slept most of the last day, so heres my account of the last day in Japan through what the others told me:

They visited a Shinto Shrine! It was similar in someways to the Buddhist, but much quieter and less… horrible:

SAM_1399They visited a park, where drew looked at birds.

SAM_1426And then visited the busiest junction in Tokyo. Maybe in The world. And played fun games on it.

See if you can spot Flic! Its like wheres wally but with a small ginger person.
See if you can spot Flic! Its like wheres wally but with a small ginger person.*

I found this photo, but I’m not sure of its significance:

SAM_1451

 

And thus, endeth our time in Japan. The following day, we got up at 5, 3 people threatened to kill me, we got on our plane to Copenhagan, and said goodbye to Drew, Helen, and a wonderful country.

Our first flight was long… Heather woke up somewhere over eastern russia and was confused as to why we hadn’t landed yet. Flic and Pip cried over the same movie. Robbie creeped out Amy every few hours. Our lsat flight happened, we got picked up at the airport, and welcomed back at Bloomfield by our friends and families.

One adventure over for us, though Flic has another adventure in mind.

She’ll be going to Japan for 3 months in January to help out OMF and support Helen. I’m sure she’d appreciate your prayers and support for her time there.

Other notable prayer subjectts:

  • Helen, as she does great work supporting the great missionaries with OMF.
  • The other missionaries we met at the conference and those who couldn’t get there. They’re great people working in some of the most difficult cultures in the world to be a missionary.
  • The missionary families. The kids are uprooted to a culture and language they don’t know. They’re brilliant kids, but that cannot be easy, and they need all the prayer and support they can get.
  • The churches and congregations we visited. From former SWAT team members, to elderly ladies, to students, to kids. These are all great people that are obviously passionate about their faith, and shining lights in a country that needs light.
  • And finally Japan itself. So many people lost and needing help, with a rising suicide rate and a growing gambling culture among men, they need to know they are loved and understand how unfathomable that is.

If you want to find out more about OMF and their work in Asia their website is here: http://www.omf.org/uk/

Thats it.

Finally, the Japan blog is over.

Wait… no, I’m sure theres one last embarrassing photo in here somewhere…

Actually trying to find an embarrassing one of me to make up for all the embarrassing ones of every one else… but genuinely can’t find any. There is, however, this:

Apparently, I'm being a tree. Shortly after this, Drew felled me. That sounds weird. But its true.
Apparently, I’m being a tree. Shortly after this, Drew felled me. That sounds weird. But its true.

If any of the team has an embarrassing photo of me, point it out and I will post it. I promise. Heres an embarrassing photo of James and Robbie to act as incentive.

I don't know whats happening here...
I don’t know whats happening here…

 

And… we’re done.

 

 

 

 

1 Jul

Japan – Final longer blog will be posted from home.

Hello!

We’re currently packing for our final flights home, and I don’t have time to find my proper laptop and transfer photos, so the final blog will be posted at some point after we get home.

Watch our twitter and facebook accounts for updates on our travel, as before, we should have WiFi at each location. We’ll be leaving tomorrow at about 6 JST, and arriving back in dublin at 1830 BST, hopefully a 20 hour journey.

See you all soon, we’d best get to bed.

Dave – So nackered, i didn’t type the ‘k’.