cutting the rug

Its that Friday feeling for most (apart from us suckers who are working tomorrow!) and what better place to round off my week than Ammanford in all its market day glory. If any of you are stumped for gift ideas for my birthday (its only 7 months away, start saving) then I can assure you that you won't go wrong if you make a purchase from one of the stalls here. Check out this little beauty I saw today :
Not only is it a striking tiger, its a fluffy fleece blanket! I can't believe I've managed to get by without one so far...I'll keep you posted on any other hidden gems I uncover from week to week, like a personal David Dickinson.

After the excitement of the market I started a digital story with Steven that will transport you to the other side of the world. Young Steven has been adventuring all over the world and has got thousands of amazing pictures from his travels, although he did seem to attract enormous, mean looking spiders in each country he visited, and even ate a cooked tarantula!(He must have swallowed a fly first - Ha!)

Heres the view from the top floor of the AVE building,

Exciting stuff I know, but whilst I was up there I spotted an incident on the other side where a pedestrian had slipped and an ambulance had popped along to make sure they were ok, and I caught a snap from up on top of the town. Its amazing how many people stopped their cars to gawp and nearly caused huge accidents!

After Steven left to crack on with his story I headed down the stairs (with caution, like the signs told me too) and helped a rather excitable Karen start her own Blog so head over and check it out. Then it was back to Abertawe for our dcn staff meeting in Deb's house!

Lifetime rocked the songs that powered this post...

"Its eleven thirty..."

I had to take Kerry to the doctor's this morning and whilst I was waiting in the living time capsule that is Penclawdd clinic I happened upon some awesome signage. Apparently, to make use of the WC facilities there it will not suffice for you to be simply male or female, you have to be a dapper chap or a hip girl about town...


After a mad dash back to the ARC from Tairgwaith I popped up to Portmead primary whilst Claire joined Nicky for the CDT meeting in the hall. Nicky was singled out by the Belly dancer (I know, you're thinking 'what sort of meeting is this?!') and after finding himself being serenaded by this temptress he sought refuge in my office! Its like working with the 'diet coke break' guy...

The rest of the afternoon was consumed with uploading video footage for editing - square eyes all around!

I spent the evening sculpting my guns digging in my garden, look out Geoff Capes, theres a new kid on the block!

This blog was powered by Italian pop-punk songs - check out StolenBikesRideFaster if you're bored.

bigfoot hits Japan

We were booked in to start a digital story with local celebrity Steven Docherty this morning, and he was so keen to get 'digitally engaged' he turned up a whole hour early! Steve has got some fantastic stories to tell so I think the challenge for him is going to be picking just one to focus on, stay tuned for more details...

During the story circle activity Claire got so immersed in her tale of hijinks on the high seas that I thought we were going to lose her to the murky depths of the ocean, but she was pulled back from the brink along with her near drowned victim! I had opted for a slightly more surreal route with my story, all I'll say is that it involved Simon Cowell and the man with the largest feet in Japan... (I was dropped as a baby).

After a delicious meal from the fancy new menu at Cafe ARC (although my panini looked suspiciously similar to a squashed baguette), we joined our hardworking computer consultants for PCSurgery.

I'm not sure if Claire was wearing a special perfume that attracts computer enthusiasts but within the space of an hour she'd been wooed with smutty jokes by one smooth operator AND asked on a date by another cheeky chappy!

The volunteers had their hands full with customers but still managed to start a blog and learn to use the camcorder, so keep your eyes peeled for the first video tutorial for computer maintenance.

Petrol, pyros and participants

I had a shortage of petrol this morning so I decided to take action and found myself filling the taxman's pockets further at 8:45am. It seems to also be the time that all the local mums do their weekly shop at the tesco filling station, and when said station has only one member of staff...whoopee!

I rolled out with a full tank of gas (one for my american readers) approximately 20 mins later than anticipated and headed over to the ARC. It was a short window before we had to leave for glamorous Glynneath, so I raced to print my expenses for 2nd Lieutenant Grey to approve - only to be informed that I had ignored an email requesting I use a new and improved sheet - sorry Bobby! Thankfully I wasn't court-martialled and returned to duty as normal.


The pop-in session was absolutely manic (well, 3 people but by comparison to last week...) and we helped a local guinea pig rescuer (as in a human who rescues guinea pigs, not a really courageous guinea pig) to set up a blog (We should really be endorsed by Blogger! Any offers welcome) which you can check out here, however, its not suitable for anyone with a phobia of the Cavia porcellus. We also had our pioneering pensioners - the 'Authors Too' who must have had a fair few weetabix (other cereals are available) this morning to produce so much content for their blog. At one point I considered locating a fire extinguisher to cool the keyboards...Above is a pic of Eric 'lightning fingers' and Ian 'the tornado typist' hard at work.

Then it was back to cafe ARC in Portmead for a bite to eat, and I manged to nearly set the cafe on fire without touching anything, like that chap in the fantastic four! After avoiding combustion we planned some editing for the mountains of video footage we've accumulated, listened to Lisa's sister singing online and wrapped up the working day...

This blog was crafted to the dulcet tones of Cake's 'Fashion Nugget' and Weezer's 'The Green Album'

Nicky's notes and misty mondays

(N.B. - Pretend this is still monday when you read this.)

I docked at DOVE around 10:15 am running late due to an eight car pile up on the M4. The mist had become torrential rain as I climbed higher up the mountain and it was quite a challenge negotiating from my car to the office without ruining my 'just rolled out of bed' hairstyle, but I just about carried it off. I had an informative meeting with 'Community Archives Wales' before Lesley, Julie and Sue joined me to start their own Blogs! They were up and running in no time (showoffs) and I felt a little redundant so I am going to scare them with html next week! ha! So make sure you check in with the Banwen Bloggers, their links are over on the right of your screen --->

Then I ventured back to the ARC (which was fortunate due to the non-stop rain) and caught up with Claire who brought me up to speed with the DCN meeting hat took place in Glynnneath that morning. However, I needn't have fretted, as Nicky excelled as a scribe and I received a comprehensive set of minutes in my inbox later that afternoon! So, if computers don't work out for you Nick you've got a promising career as a secretary ahead...

I moved into the hall before the tai chi ninjas arrived to hop on our wireless network (that has a range of approx. 3ft) and geeked out writing codes to pull the blog rss feeds together and convert them into h t m lzzzz zzz....sorry I sent myself to sleep talking about it.

I went to visit my gran and had to drive really slowly all the way in case I squashed any frogs on the way. Visibility was poor, frogs were plentiful and foolhardy.

'Stop calling your arms guns!'

Just a brief post to keep you both updated with my weekend shenanigans. It all started so well, I was up bright and early on Saturday and after dropping Kerry off at the library I set about bagging up the mountain of soil thats been sitting on my driveway for months (oops!) After some hard graft and thanks to my formidable 'guns' I had filled 10 rubble sacks and was all set to go and fly tip them (only kidding!), but as I was washing my newly purchased spade I noticed that the water wasn't flowing down the drain, but rather it was filling up. Upon closer inspection I discovered that our drain was blocked, and our link to the sewer. . .That was not cool, in any way. I took a picture but I have decided to save you the trauma I have suffered this weekend and we will leave this story there.

So, drainage aside I spent my weekend walking with my wife, Elvis our dog and Maddy (Kerry's mum's dog) and on our travels we saw pigs (in the middle of the woods, they were huge and awesome), pheasants (which always makes me think of 'Danny the champion of the world') and cows running around like lunatics, pretty exciting stuff huh? I also went for lunch with my gran and my mum, my brother was supposed to be there but he didn't wake up in time - lunch was at 1pm! Then Sunday evening I had a phonecall from my friend Gwyn who lives on a farm in North Wales, to tell me that his band have been approached by a record label! You should head over and check out 'the mephs' and leave them a message - http://www.myspace.com/themephs Here is a candid shot of me chatting away on our girly pink phone.

In fact all this music talk has got me thinking, I always take ages to update my blog, not because the writing is carefully crafted and the words deftly worked until perfect, but because I have to plan the soundtrack for my blogging, so I will post a link to what I'm listening to when I write my updates, although I doubt that many (if any) of you will share my musical preferences! But saying that, I have been spinning some mellower tunes of late. Lets kick things off with my current favourite 'Dave House', especially 'old girl'. Be warned, I think he uses the odd blue word for those of you that are easily offended. Happy listening, nos da!

Welcome to Royston Vasey

Hello hello, (one for each of my readers - ha!) I hope this update finds you feeling fine and dandy? Its the end of a long week (well, no longer than any other week, same amount of days but you know what I mean) but its been productive and hopefully our 'pop in 4 help' sessions are going to follow in the footsteps of the now (in)famous PC Surgeries and take off.

We started the day in the wild west, or Ammanford as its sometimes known. Friday is market day which I think doubles up with 'take an eccentric relative to town day'. We saw some absolutely zany characters whilst we were there, but that's enough about the staff (only joking Karen!). Seriously though, it was a really fun morning and Karen was working like crazy to promote our session and it certainly paid off, it looks like we could be very busy over the next few months...Oh, and here's a pic of Claire in our room down in AVE Ammanford.


On the way back to the cars we had to negotiate right through the heart of the market, and let me tell you it took a hefty amount of self restraint to stop myself walking away with a few choice purchases, for example the multicoloured 'Trinidad' baseball caps, the fleece blankets with fuzzy pictures of dolphins on them and a twin cassette version of 'Now 23'! I also overheard the mobile butcher ordering his dinner from the burger van (probably because he was shouting his order form 100 yards away!), and the fact that he shouted ' I want a hot dog not a burger right, NOT A BURGER, I don't want a burger!' seemed to imply that the burgers may not be up to much (or he just really doesn't like burgers).

Having resisted temptation (even from the stall that was selling assorted multivitamins along with AA batteries and dog food) it was time to race over to Cwmgwrach to catch up with the 'Authors too'. Its always a great laugh working with the 'Old news' creators and they never cease to amaze with the progress they are making and the enthusiasm they bring to the challenges they encounter in cyberspace!

Then it was a mad dash back to the ARC for a Digital Community Network meeting, though we were one soldier down as Deb's cancelled operation on her toe had been 'uncancelled'! (You can read a bit about Deb's morning over on Claire's blog.) Although it was only under a local anesthetic, and I'm sure Bobby wouldn't have let us off a meeting just because we couldn't feel our legs! Only kidding, get well soon Debbie! Well its getting late now, so I'll treat you to another sunset picture to keep you going, enjoy your weekend!

P.S. Make sure you check out Lisa's blog, I've been in stitches! Good job Miss Watkins..

Climb every mountain

Setting off from the ARC this morning after trimming l o a d s of flyers with a wonky guillotine (I am convinced there is a disgruntled employee working in a guillotine factory who sets them just a couple of degrees off square!) I ventured up to sunny Tairgwaith. It was a surprise to see Karen from Ammanford there, she was busy moving computers around ( I made a mental note to warn Nicky to expect a call!). I then proceeded to treat myself to an extra 40 minutes of flyer trimming (with guess what, a wonky guillotine).

From AVE it was over the mountain and then over another one to Glynneath where I was stood up at the allotments by the volunteers, who were busy in the classroom expanding their knowledge of all things that grow in the ground. So I popped in to the training centre just in time to catch Nicky receiving a call from . . . thats right, Karen in Ammanford regarding a computer that she had moved earlier in the day! Check out Dr. Nicks cracking Blog here, or follow the link on the left. Stay tuned for Michaels!

Whilst I was waiting for Claire to make her way up the valley from Portmead where she had been busy filming in the school for their 50th anniversary celebration preparations, I popped up to visit the DOVE Workshop. I grabbed a quick word with Sue who had been out in the sun soaked garden all day but was suffering with an awful cold. Then I was treated to a cup of tea courtesy of the lovely Leslie, and we had a quick catch up along with Julie, but just as I had made myself comfortable it was time to hit the road again.

On the way back down the hill you are treated to a fantastic view of the valleys, but they aren't normally on fire!



I met up with Claire and we headed over to Resolven to the Play session in a local park. The next hour mainly consisted of playing parachute games, running around making loads of noise and generally acting like an 8 year old (a far cry from my sophisticated, mature demeanour that you are all accustomed to!) and at some point I ended up as a carthorse dragging a tarpaulin UPHILL with an army of tiny tearaways hitching a lift...My poor old joints will be suffering tomorrow I tell thee. I also made a new friend from the animal Kingdom on the way to the park - He was straight out of a gangsta rap video, check him out --->

And so with a new friend made Claire dropped my weary bones off at Glynneath training centre at 6pm just in time for their youth club. After working with two girls that I am convinced must eat unhealthy amounts of sugar and caffiene we had a digital story in the bag and a digital outreach worker fit to drop! I plonked myself in the car and headed for swansea, just in time to catch the sun setting on the home stretch.

Blogs, Biscuits and Bobby

The ARC is where the action was this morning, with two people booked in our first pop in session (is that a contradiction in terms?). They are still celebrating their Two Lord Mayor's Regeneration Awards that they scooped recently, which as well as being a fantastic achievement and recognition of the hard work that goes on there, also means that the students get free tea, coffee, juice AND biscuits in the classes, which more importantly means that WE get free food and tea! Its like Easter has been extended for the whole of April. I will be visiting Marjorie and trying the 'half the calories' diet at this rate. Bobby is the self appointed sampler of the celebration snacks (try saying that 3 times quickly) and has been working non-stop ensuring that the biscuits are in an optimum state for our participants...

The pop in session went really well, with one lady calling in with her brand new swanky digital camera, and Claire translated 3 years of a photography degree into 15mins! Deb had been working hard recruiting clients in need of our help all week, and then she took to the streets with our posters and came back with another client for us! Top job Deb! We spent some time working on Claire's blog, taking apart the html codes and rejiggling them into a spectacularly girly look. Then we roped in our technicians to start their own blogs - stay tuned for the links to Nicky and Michaels daily deeds. And while we thought that we were busy, Paddy, one of our PC Surgery Volunteers managed to take apart two computers, strip a power supply down to its bare bones AND swap a DVD drive between two machines...

Glynneath and beyond

I clocked in early at the ARC to print out some posters and flyers for our 'pop in 4 help!' session in Glynneath, which was due to start at 10am over 20 miles away. No problems I hear you say, with well over an hour to print and run I'd be arriving with time for a cuppa before Kick off! However, when entering the ARC its near impossible to do anything without being sidetracked into bizarre, off-topic conversations ranging form ghosts to blogs to online karaoke and that's just with Deb!

I made it to the training centre with seconds to spare and proceeded to walk the mean streets of Glynneath, putting posters up in the local shops and chatting to the (mostly eccentric) proprietors. Then it was back for a refreshing cup of fairtrade tea in the centre before hitting the road to Tairgwaith.

Before I could begin the basic IT session in the community centre I had to negotiate the roadworks in Pontardawe which is always a pleasure, especially as I seem to end up behind enormous, smelly rubbish lorries each time I'm there. So you spend the duration of the hill hoping that the behemoth in front of you refrains from dumping the putrid contents of its trailer on your bonnet as it ascends the mountain...

Arriving later than anticipated but thankfully rubbish free I enjoyed chatting with Tommy about his time spent in the far flung corners of the world whilst debating the pros and cons of cutting and pasting between different software packages. Then we looked at using google earth and I had an extended tour of downtown aberdeen (as seen from space!).

Then it was back to Swansea where I was on the prowl for an exciting photo for the blog, but I got distracted by my friend Cameron who was visiting his mum in work. He'd been off school because he's got chicken pox and had been bouncing on his trampoline all day...If only you could have chicken pox twice! Anyhow, here's a picture of Lisa trying on Claire's new shades...

Corsa Crisis and Bloggers at Banwen

Today was our first 'pop in 4 help' session at the DOVE workshop, but before I even saw the sign for the M4 I was stopped in my tracks by a phonecall from Claire. Having enjoyed a weekend away in the 'big smoke' (thats London for those of you not down with street lingo) she had returned home only to find that her beloved 'Little Betty' (her silver vauxhall corsa) wouldn't start! After a quick brainstorming session in a layby just outside Blaenymaes, the decision was reached that I would check in at the ARC, then pick up some jump leads and do my best impression of a mechanic.

After nearly electrocuting both Claire and myself, we managed to create a controlled explosion leading to combustion and a running engine, just call me minty!(One for all you Eastenders fans out there.)

So, with a running engine and a newly aquired skill in jumpstarting cars I left Claire in the hafod to haggle over the cost of a replacement battery and made my way to the rarefied air of Banwen. I had (as always) a lovely time and have booked Leslie and Sue (and I'm still holding out for Julie) in for a blogging lesson next Monday. By this time next week we should all be able to keep up with whats going on with DOVE and the community garden project, and hopefully a lot more, so stay tuned for more details on that...

After that I trundled back to Blaenymaes for a spot of lunch, followed by a run in with a mean tom-cat who has been picking on the ARC's adopted cat. Lisa and I tried to chase him off before there was a feline felony but both cats disappeared, but I'm sure they will have managed to resolve their differences by now.

After dealing with the animal crisis it was back to work. Nicky returned from his travels and he, Debbie and I had a meeting outside Deb's office (I felt like I was in the IBM advert where they all meet standing up to save time). With a lot of positive ideas and enthusiasm bouncing around the corridors we knuckled down to finishing up for the day. I didn't manage to get any exciting photographs to share with you today but tomorrow I'm off to Glynneath in the morning which is as good a place as any to encounter bizarre scenarios... Nos da.

28 mins until monday

I hope this finds you all refreshed after your weekend. I am convinced that time actually speeds up from 4:30pm on Friday until 7:00am Monday when it returns to normal! Now I'm sure you are all out of your minds due to the lack of an update on Saturday, so breathe easy because here it comes...

Saturday was spent doing washing (clothes, I wash me everyday, not just the weekends...) and then we went back to Parc Le Breos for another walk. We managed to completely avoid animal attacks this time which was nice, but I did bump into an old friend on the way back!

Pretty weird huh? What are the odds of seeing the same beetle two days in a row in a huge park? I know that those of the more cynical persuasion will say that it is obviously a different beetle, but it was him, deep down inside I know this to be true.

As for Sunday, this mostly consisted of eating lunch in Llanelli with my mum and gran, more washing, dog walking (only over the elba, no exciting pics for you) and preparing for the week ahead. I will be attempting to collect rss feeds from all our dcn affiliated blogs and creating a webpage where they can all live together, and when this is achieved I will have officially made the transition to supernerd, I'm excited to say the least! Seacrest out.

That friday feeling

I got off to a sleepy start, but they do say that old age doesn't come alone and I was feeling every one of my 25 years as I navigated the A465 to Glynneath. After a productive meeting with the horticultural society I headed back down the road to visit the 'authors two', creators of the old news blog. These pioneering pensioners have dived headfirst into technology and are progressing at a rate of knots! So for all you 'technophobes' out there, next time you say that you can't use a computer or a mobile phone, there are two chaps in Cwmgwrach who'll be happy to show you how wrong you are! After we'd knocked out a draft version of the next update for their blog it was time for me to head back to Blaenymaes (well, Portmead technically, it just didn't sound as catchy! I'm a sucker for alliteration).

After a lovely lunch (see, I did it again) I hassled Miss Watkins into creating a blog, but I felt a little redundant as she was two steps ahead of my finely tuned tuition (they just keep coming). So check out 'The days of an admin officer' as Lisa takes us through the daily trials and tribulations she faces on the front line in the Arc.

Then, as a treat after work, my wife and I went for a walk in Parc Le breos with our dog Elvis. We were enjoying the tranquility of the area and letting the stress of the week fall away when Elvis decided to play with a large group of cows who were enjoying their dinner, and as you can imagine they were less than impressed. It was only yesterday I was being chased by a flock of hens with bad attitudes and now I found myself back in the firing line, except this time they were really big, and had horns! Luckily, after a short chase they must have decided that it was just too much effort for a Friday evening.


We managed to avoid anymore hostile encounters with the animal kingdom, but we did see a remarkably large beetle on our travels, and Elvis managed to snap one of her claws! It was sticking out at a horrible angle and was covered in blood but she seemed unfazed by her injury, cleaned her paw up and carried on chasing her ball...

We start our drop-in sessions in the centres next week, so its going to be hectic from here on in, which reminds me, we should post some details of these new sessions on our website...I'm going to leave it there before I think of any more work to add to the list!

Attack of the killer hens!

This morning we were working with a youth group in Tairgwaith, helping them to create a short documentary about their local area and its history. We decided to walk to the various locations in the village as the sun was shining and we'd get eco-brownie points for our lack of carbon emissions (although its a 40 mile round trip to Tairgwaith itself...). We made our way towards the church, deep in conversation (which mainly consisted of doctor who and quad biking?!) and blissfully unaware of the danger that was lurking ahead...Rounding the corner we began to climb the hill which runs past a small farm, when suddenly we heard a strange rumbling sound. We froze, paralysed with fear, I heroically placed myself in front of the group, offering myself as a sacrifice to the unknown terror hurtling towards us...I caught a glimpse of the beasts in between various scenes from life that were flashing before my eyes, we were being hunted by a flock of chickens!

Luckily for us they were reasonable (for a bunch of killer wildfowl) and allowed us to pass unharmed after we explained that we worked for the digital community network, as they were firm believers that digital technology should accessible to everyone! Who would have guessed! I have included some pictoral evidence of our ordeal, although those of a nervous disposition may wish to look away...

practice what you preach!

I seem to spend a great deal of time during work convincing people that they should start their own blog. I faithfully inform them of its benefits and just how essential it is in our modern, 'digitally-engaged' society. In fact, listening to my ramblings about the blogging revolution you would be led to believe that its near impossible to survive on a day to day basis without a 'blog', so as a 'digital outreach worker', it goes without saying that I must be posting to my blog on a daily basis! Well, in order to avoid an awkward silence when someone enquires about my blog, I have decided it would be in my best interest to actually create one!