The tickets are booked, and so this June I’ll hopefully be attending Broadcast Live - an annual media industry event being held at Earls Court, London apparently being the only event of its kind. With over 300 exhibitors including the BBC, Sony, Apple and obviously more, hopefully it’ll be pretty cool and get to see some new technology and get some freebies!

Oh and of course - watch out for photos!

So the second day of being an ambassador at Kingston University for the Computing, Information Systems & Mathematics (CISM) Faculty at an Applicant Open Day for prospective students commenced earlier today. (My fellow ambassador Myles blogged about the first day over at his blog.)

So, motivated with Red Bull and wearing my CISM t-shirt this time expectations were higher than the February Open Day where the number of students was far fewer than anticipated… but how we were wrong… Yet again the anticipated number of students due to attend was lower than expected, however was still much higher than the first open day. The day went well, ferrying customers from the main exhibition hall (where I was stationed) down to our faculty ‘base room’ which was where prospective students could speak one-to-one with tutors (in theory all good - in practice this doesn’t seem to work very well, due to a lack of students going there!). As well as helping random people every so often who were lost on thier own travels around the maze which is the Penrhyn Road Campus, I also had to take a group around a tour of the computing facilities later in the afternoon.
Yet again it was a good day, a fun nice experience which I would be happy to do again!

Today there was a basketball game at the university, with the Charlotte 49ers (UNCC’s team) against Hofstra University, to you and me, thats a university up in Long Island, New York. It was a good game, and in true ‘me’ fashion, I took a load of pics which you can see in the gallery, as well as a video clip which is at the bottom of this blog post! In the end Charlotte won, by 8 points (I think!), even though come the end it was getting pretty close!

But, as always, there’s always crazy things happening - and this game was no exception! For starters there was a brass band - with drums - in one of the stands. Every so often they would all burst into tune, normally during time outs and at half time. You’d think a band was just a band though - but they seemed pretty energetic! Even with thier big instruments, all standing in what must have been pretty cramped seating for them, they were moving with the music, from just swaying, to turning around all the time during one song after - er - the chorus? - I’ll call it the chorus… Anyway, for a band, they were pretty amazing…

…there were also quite a few people dressed up as everything, from bears to smooties and from suns to a big nut and bolt… mainly advertising stuff, but at half time they had a crazy little basketball game of thier own - pics in the album, all i can say it was pretty crazy. There was also the Charlotte team mascot - Norm the Niner - who went around, propelling tshirts out of a cannon, or, as the pic shows below (the one on the right) using a fishing rod and a fake spider to scare people!

Friday night Myles’ uncle who lives in South Carolina took us to the Motor Speedway track here in Charlotte to watch a NASCAR race! The race started at 8pm and so was at night which in a way was pretty cool, however as we found out later may not have been the best as it got very cold with the race not ending to around midnight.

 Before the race started we had to go buy ear plugs from a vendor outside the stadium - I would find out the nessacity later when 40+ cars with beefed up engines roar past 300 times - it becomes very noisy, unbearable without any ear protection. Outside seemed a hive of activity in itself, with loads of golf cars racing each other and driving around in groups. There was also the team trailers selling official merchandise along side sponors and thier own adverts and competitions. Of course there was also TV-ness, with a live TV soundstage outside, and a TV-Media village made up of loads of satelitte trucks and trailers, serving to broadcast the race to TV, as well as being a hub for all things media related - rightly called the NASCAR Technology Center.

Sorry if some of the photos are blurred. With it being night time, and the speed of the cars it was difficult to get good photos.

Anyways, onto the race itself, which was great, we had pretty good seats, close to the track, just past the corner of turn 4, allowing us to clearly see the pit lane aswell as being abloe to see the start / finish line and the majority of the track. Along with a ton of crashes, a few of which happened just in front of us, and a couple I cought on camera, the cars were going so fast the majority of the time taking photos was a challenge! I resorted to video for the majority of the race, which you can see a short 3min video at the bottom of this blog post.

All in all it was a great night, seeing the race was great, and some of thier equipment, such as after a crash having 2 trucks with jets which sounded like an airliner landing!, which blew all the debris off of the track, as well as the crashes of course! And how a guy went from 42nd place - to 2nd!

Today we went to a car show at the NASCAR track here in Charlotte. We would have missed it if we hadn’t of seen an advert on TV about it the night before, and so our quick decision was to go to it!

The NASCAR speedway itself (where it was being held) was huge, with a few cars on show near the entrance, but most either down on the track itself or in the center of the track where the pit stop is and such. We ended up walking the entire way around the track looking at cars - there were loads! Way too many to take a photo of each without running out of battery especially when I forgot to take my spare. A few of the photos I took are below of the cars;

Also there were life size show cars for the recent Disney Pixar movie ‘Cars’, which were in a building in the center of the track;

And, to my delight a TV Show was being recorded! For the American ‘Speed Channel’, there was a main stage where they were filming 2 cars at a time for a car show to apparently be aired in January 2007. A few pics are below;

In the end it was a good day out, even contending being out in the heat for 5 hours with no shade! I also took an astonishing 285 photos, way too many to upload onto my site, but a selection of what I thought were some of the best can be found at the gallery by clicking here. Or from clicking any of the pictures above.

Yesterday (Sunday) we went along to an American Football game in downtown Charlotte at the Bank of America Stadium. The Carolina Panthers were against the Atlanta Falcons. Even though the game ended up with the Carolina Panthers loosing in what could simply be called a rubbish game by them, the whole experience was great. The stadium itself was huge, and even though we were at a top corner section, the view was still pretty good, and the atmosphere from the supporters was great, with the Falcon supporters chanting at the Panther fans all the time… with one calling one of thier players ‘half man. half amazing!’ at the top of his voice, which was pretty amazing in itself!

At half time we also saw the biggest flag I have ever seen in my life! It covered the entire pitch to commemorate 9/11 which anniversary followed the next day (today). When each of the top Panther players entered at the start as well was quite a sight, with flames shooting up and mini firework type things…

Some photos below are from what I took on the day, there are more in the gallery. From left to right, TV News truck, Player Entrance, the BIG flag!

  > New Site

As you may have noticed, the site has changed its look. Its a bit more modern now than before, and in my view more professional than before. There’s now pages dedicated for each video and website (some website pages still need to be completed) which I have made and more bits and bobs, so go explore! For all you in the know and who care, I made the site fully using CSS, while making it XHTML 1.0 valid - the first time I have done so on my own after taking the plunge into valid webpages after I was forced to change! Ahem! Hehe.

Well I guess thats that. I keep thinking to myself that I’m missing something out here, and I’ll probably realise later and kick myself, but hey, until next time…

Thursday night saw four of us go see Lee Evans on his XL 2005 tour at Wembley Arena, basically a big tent… anyway, it was a good night, and Lee Evans was great - it was even good enough to make me want to buy the DVD itself! Hehe. The finale was truly amazing too, and it did seem to be his best tour yet, be that because we were actually there to see him live, it was still a great night out!

I would show you photos of the… experience, but Tescos didn’t want you to see them. Boo to them. A simple task of processing photos from one of their own disposable cameras proved far to difficult, leading to a palaver which saw photos within photos, photos spewed across two photos, and seven photos disappearing into thin air, even less of which managed to find their way onto the CD… What they wanted you to see was the Lee Evans tour from another dimension, to which I am glad to show you what it was like from their perspective;

As you can see at (1) you can pretty much see the standard car park sign which you would find in any normal arena, along with car just to the left of it… (I think it was a Ford Focus)… you can see the stage at (2)… I think the car park was to the right hand side of the stage if I recall…

This is the stage… if you’re wondering where the rest of it is…

Its there! I think the first bit of the stage fell off or something…

Oh, and here’s the stage (to the right) with half of a big screen to the top left (the arrow)… quite annoying when Lee walked to the other side of the stage…

But, I did get the programme for the night;

Anyway! The next night (Friday) three of us went to see My Hero being filmed at Teddington Studios - and again, it was a good night, shame cameras aren’t allowed, but still, we watched the first episode of the upcoming new series being filmed - so watch out for us laughing in the audience! Hehe, and lets just say it made me want to work in the Media even more, oh, and watch more shows!

I’ve uploaded photos of a small car show into the gallery, click on the right, or the photos below to get to them;