a test...

... that passed,

- A  3D version of †he original. The main 'Blogspot' logotype is a flat  word on the 3D orange block. As the site is reaching hit number 10,000, I modernise the original? Maybe.
Truthfully, I was just experimenting in Adobe Photoshop CS6.

I also give the chance to easily view the first page, by offering the quick link near the top of the right-hand column...

... or here

Sun day

The wonders of weekend coffee and a sunny river in January!

and...

... my 2013 CV

here

I'm distracted...

... by listening to the FA cup, whilst typing this post. 1-1 hmm.

... but i must focus. My first notes. 'Ristretto'. Believe me or not, I have only recently discovered the wonder of this drink. Hmm, what it is, is a short Espresso. As espressos tend be difficult to neck, due to their heat. The answer? A shorter drink, same power, a ristretto.
Same price, it's a winner.
Ristretto 

Wow! Oliver Giroud! 2-1

A fairly pointless note, that I actually made last week, during snow. Cold, it was cold. I tried to find a true positive, other than 'it's pwetty!'. My note:
'The only thing gain from a 0 level, is water freezing, ice or snow.'

2-2 damn. Why, oh why? 

I've got to learn to start living life for the moment. I must restrict designing life, living in the future. It can be good to plan, but it's all about now! We cannot direct fate. Shit happens.

I realise that I am distracted, and so simply plug in thoughts that I have noted on my phone. Hence the lack of discussion. Sorry.

Girls. I am fed up of having hopes dashed. Don't worry, I have recovered, sort of!

YAY!!! THHEEEEEO!!  

Sorry, continuing my sad story...
:(
... but I have the inability to be properly depressed  about everything, as I always play my wildcard (of facing how lucky i am to be here, at all).

I don't get tearful, when listening to music, but the tune that always pulls on heartstrings...
'But you don't really care for music, do ya? Well it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth...'

Job done, 3-2. Good good.

One, final note:
'cycling is not the only 'troubled' sport.'
I could write a whole book on my theories here, but I'll keep it short.
Basically, it saddens me, the large focus on 'performance enhancing drugs in cycling.' The two are not mutually exclusive. People must be prepared to hear of a big drugs scandal in a sport in which everyone considers clean. It pains me, to hear other people consider cycling as the only 'dirty' sport. To give one example, I have just yesterday watched the Australian open tennis, semi finals, and I make no official claim, but i have my doubts.

... I was distracted and therefore forgot a picture (taken in winter evening glorious sunshine)...

Well I've seen your flag on the Marble Arch, and love is not a victory march, it's cold and it's  a broken hallelujah...

It's not a cry that you hear at night, and it's not somebody who's seen the light, It's a cold and broken hallelujah...

I should note that although sung by all-time hero, Jeff Buckley, 'Hallelujah was originally written by Leonard Cohen.

I know.... that you know I know...

... that a positive from my injury is that now I am able to realise how immensely lucky I was that I was living such an amazingly nice life, pre-accident. There seemed to be no problem, life was rolling along well. No hiccups. Then my fate played an interesting move. A strong positive view could be that perhaps, I was due a big hiccup in my life. Hmmm..... 

...Er, right, music. I realise that I made a new year's resolution 'to positively accept mp3s', and I think that I am being encouraged to do so by some almighty power. I was after a Norah Jones cd in the 'HMV closing down sale' (I can state the shop's name, it IS closing down). I had to ask, and no they didn't have any. I looked at the stock, hmm madness. I wanted a cd! I then picked Ana Brun. In the sale, as everything was, it was bought.
I got home, opened it and it was a different band, 'Breathless' (overspilling the 'Ana Brun' shelf). I knew that I hadn't my glasses on in the shop, just faithfully trusting the shop. 
Breathless are ok, not Ana Brun, but ok. A computer screen never gets overstocked, selling you incorrectly. Hmmm...
Clinging on to this 'music' topic, is the fact i want to share with you the joy of silence. When a cd/cassette/vinyl is finished, it finishes. 
Silence.

Silence,
A chance to reflect on what you'd just listened to.
Silence.
You are now without the music.
You can begin to realise what the music gave you, as you are now without it.

So you change the cd, keeping the previously used on back, safe in it's unique case.
Special, a keepsake.

OK, now, cycling. My obsession with team kit design became ignited by two team kit designs of this forthcoming season.
Team Sky (Britain)

La Francaise Des Jeux (France)

Hmmm,  similar, in that the teams' only have one main sponsor, and are supported by a sporty blue as a secondary colour. 

However, the main difference, one is black the other white. Maybe I read too much into colours, but teams have to be careful in a sport that is shadowed with a dark mystery, of dark secrets of 'hidden fuels'. Teams want to project their cleanliness, purity, innocence, and bright youth. 

I know which characteristics, I would naturally attribute to either kit designs...  

For, over six years have passed since my accident. Besides being in a bed-ridden state in hospital, I have lived in a wheelchair. I am not planning on my life being so dependent. I regularly feel satisfied with myself as have grown  in self-confidence, being 'in this state'. Whereas much earlier on, I would have felt for these people, I now feel disgust and hate towards them. Who? Well, I was going about town the other day. A mother and her 3 or 4 children, paused on the pavement, to let me by. I overtook. There was another wheelchair, ahead of me.

"Watch-out. There's one of 'em approaching." 

 This made me crazy. This mother was classing me and all wheelchairs, together, as 'one-of-'em'. These young children were being taught by their mother that 'they're all the same'. To be classed as 'one of 'em', can be hurtful.

Disappointing. A deep breath, I moved on. Grrrrr.

I am giving the reason why I post a link to this website, regularly on Twitter and Facebook. I enjoy the fact that this website is popular, I am not forcing anyone to visit. It is easier to click on a link if you find it on FB or Twitter, than having to type the address in yourselves (so I've been told, understandably).

Hehe. Hmmm. I sat making this last note, in a cafe today, alongside a very hot girl, and her boyfriend...

'If I see a hot girl, I know that I must just let fate happen. I cannot force its direction. 

Deal with it'

 Everyone's fate is different
   
Today's snow and...

x?

 my cat (statue)...

2013 CV

Although there is forever a link on my homepage, here you will find my 2013 CV...

2013 CV...

Alligator Wine...

I open this weeks post with Jeff Buckley covering an old blues tune, 'Alligator Wine'. I have horrified myself to have only just found the tune, and so bought it on iTunes. I have every other version of every Jeff Buckley tune, on CD. Now, with my positive attitude towards iTunes/mp3s (new year resolution), i have found this very 'rare' track. iTunes means that 'rare tracks' no longer exist.

OK, coffee must be had...

... coffee got

I have talked about the ridiculous amount of stress that 'I used to get', from ensuring that my wheelchair was sufficiently charged. I used to charge overnight on alternate nights, when I knew that there would be help if i stranded myself. It would still cause me stress. Now, living independently, I take no risk, and charge the chair every night. The light scale, that i use to measure the charge, lies. The stress is caused by trying to work out how it lies (when 100% = 150%). Basically I talk about this because the stress was revisited on wednesday (I forgot to charge it on Tuesday night). The scale was showing 100%, but I know that 100% doesn't truly exist, panic. 
I survived, mission completed, full life left.

Right, I am unsure as to whether or not I should include the next note. But hey, I will drop it in, and merge it with my next. Always a massive fan of girls with dark hair, but I maybe state the obvious in saying that blonde hair, if worn well, can be extremely eye catching/attractive. Hehehe, the less said about this topic, the better. I can't help but open my mouth, and complimenting good looking girls, but I am trying to cut down. I don't want to sell-out completely(probably too late).

A musical heroine, Rachael Yamagata

 Has It Happened Yet?

No. But it will in time.

I look at my notes. It seems that many of my thoughts are far too negative and/or private for publication on this blog. I have no close friends that I see regularly so I use this time, on a friday night, positively, focussing on good things that people will like reading, not be offended, and so I do not get overly depressed by my lack of communication with the rest of the world. I need some 'output', am currently a financially-unemployed-creative, so i have created this blog...  

I FF> to talking about the immense joy i got from visiting another independent cafe in Twickenham.

OK, i thought it was independent, it is a very new, small cafe chain

http://www.harrisandhoole.co.uk

 Well worth a  visit. One of the tastiest, nutty coffees that I've had...

 ... so, I had to buy some of their 'Guatemalan beans'

Everyone has lifelines containing a birth and a death, living through different paths of fate. In doing so, all equals out, therefore all souls/everyone are/is equal. All of our 'positives', equal all of our 'negatives', along everyone's lifeline.

Confused? Please don't be. Sorry, if so.
; ) 

Turn up the Sun...

Mid-winter is behind us, so
Turn up the sun...

Happy 2013!!!
It's 'gonna be a good year! I just have that feeling, so make sure that you too are enjoying it.

I type the year's first post in the late afternoon, am currently avoiding my caffeine hydration as I have just enjoyed time at one of 'my local cafe's, and i may as usual opt for an evening coffee.

Although we are accompanied by an Oasis live performance (above), I am currently listening to some 'House beats' (4x4) from my iPod. I forced myself to make the new years resolution, and to 'positively accept mp3s'. I know that I may sound a bit old and pathetic, but as room on my CD shelf has run out, new music shall be downloaded in mp3 format. I have plenty of space still on iPod/Hard-drive. This resolution should also have a relatively positive effect on my bank balance (we will see).

Right, erm, 'coffee', 'music', next topic, 'smiling'. It is the time of year that brings with it, as usual, occasional miserable weather. The other day I realised that fortunately I do not need to rely on the sun, to be smiling. OK, it was raining and i saw that everyone, EVERYONE else was grimacing, looking severely pained, by a bit of water hitting them on the head. This made me smile. I quickly realised that I am English, and am quite used to a bit of water in the sky. I think I have written before, that by turning it positive, rain helps make me feel alive! Not cared for in a hospital or constrained to the shelter of a rehabilitation home, but alive in normal life existence. Meanwhile I am getting drenched! But water dries!

Everything is just a contrast. 
There is an opposite to everything, so when we break everything down to it's atomic scale, there is a possibility for the atoms to be arranged, alternately, resulting in something very different.
Every colour has it's contrast. It is only in finding this contrast do we find the second colour. There is nothing which hurts the eye more, than two colours that are very almost the same, but different. It is often better to opt for two very contrasting colours. Opposites attract. One colour without its opposite, is nothing. So, we realise that essentially, what we are missing  (the contrast), is the something we are after. 

Hehehe, ok, confused? I'm sorry. I speak sense (honest)!

We are only humans and therefore are limited (compared to our mind's possibilities)! We must just let fate happen, we cannot force or accurately direct it.

Oh crikey! I have just reread the past two sections. I realise that many of you will wonder what on earth i have taken making me type this deeeeeep mental thoughts. I answer by saying 'nothing', but 'i have no coffee'. Hmmm, maybe the coffee usually calms me down? Who knows.

OK, I am happy, as, this afternoon I collected my 'sample editions of Colours of the Peloton', from the printers, giving one to my favourite cafe. Below depicts the last page of the 'sample edition'.

Originally designed as a coffee-table book in 2006, it can be finally now sampled in its proper environment. 

  
  A link to 'Colours of the Peloton' very own webpage -

Colours of the Peloton