Weekend trip to Dover

Hello everyone,

I just thought I would inform you of my trip this weekend, I am going down to Dover, a small town on the south coast of England. From Billingham this would be a 5 and a half hour drive however we are leaving on Friday night. I finish college at 5:15 PM, after that my dad will pick me up in the car, drive back to Billingham so I can get my stuff for the weekend, then we will be leaving straight away. We are leaving on the Friday evening and heading down to Girton, a village near Cambridge to stay over on Friday night. Via the A1 this will be 197 miles, at least 3 hours and 28 minutes on the road plus traffic. Then on the Saturday morning we are leaving Cambridge and heading to Dover which is 122 miles (2 hours 11 minutes on the road). Then we are driving back to Billingham on the Sunday, which by the way will be my website's 700-day anniversairy. So I am looking forward to the weekend, I have included screenshots to suggest the route and how long it will be.

It is also worth noting that I have updated the website, links to my Facebook, Twitter and YouTube profiles are now under my Twitter box on the front page.

New 90cm Satellite Dish to watch foreign TV channels!

Hi everyone!

I have some exciting news, I recently purchased a 90cm satellite dish and a receiver so I can watch foreign TV channels across Europe, Asia and Africa. Well I got it set up last night and working, originally I did not know where I was pointing and only received one channel - 'SOS Kanal' from Serbia. Last night I moved the dish some more and received Italy and Poland from Hotbird 9 at 13.0 East, I can only receive the free channels but it's still fun. I have received the main channels e.g. Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3, Retequattro, Canale 5, Italia 1 (Italy) and some Polish stuff, some music channels, news channels etc. I can also receive Rai Sport 1 and Rai Sport 2 (Italy). Right now I am tuned to RTL 102.5 TV which is an Italian radio station and TV channel. Pics of my dish and the stuff I can receive are at the bottom of the post. Oh and one more note, my email address has changed, it's no longer uklive9@gmail.com it is now jack@jack-bromby.com so if you have any enquires please email there or use the contact form on my website.

Website - 2 years old/Windows Vista laptop damaged

As most of you know my Windows 7 laptop screen broke and is now in the shop for repair. My only other option was to use my Windows Vista. Well, that option is now out the window. I was walking down the stairs with my laptop this morning and as I did so the laptop fell right out of hands, down the stairs and landed on the floor. I was hoping nothing would be damaged but I was wrong. I turned the laptop on and although it started up successfully the screen had been damaged, I don't mean it had smashed, I mean it would come up with white and black colours and it would be all screwed up. I couldn't see anything. I tried plugging this into my TV but it was set by default to extend onto both displays so that was no good. Eventually, I find that the laptop begins emitting light smoke somewhere out of the back so I quickly turn it off before an issue that requires the use of a fire extinguisher arrises. Unfortunately I have no laptop now until my Windows 7 is repaired, even that could take a while. My Windows Vista had all my music, movies, Skyrock recordings etc. on the hard drive. Right now I have to use my dad's laptop to update the blog.

On a lighter note however, my website (www.jack-bromby.com) has now been on the web for 2 years! Since January 3rd 2009. I really didn't expect it to still be up this long but it is. I am happy anyway, plus it has just been renewed by Ceejay (Chris McNally) until the end of 2012, although it won't actually go offline until January 2013 even then I will be renewing it then for another 2 years too. However there has been some problems with the server today and I have found sometimes it won't load properly or redirects to Flirp.net. This is a problem with GoFreeserve who host my website and is out of my control. It usually fixes itself so the site may experience some downtime but it will eventually fix itself and be back up 100%.

If you haven't already, please click "Follow".

Back from Gravesend

Hi everyone,

I am very sorry for not updating my blog recently. I have been to Gravesend, a town in the south of England, just near London so about 250 miles from Billingham. I have been there to see the football/soccer team Ebbsfleet play which was yesterday. They were playing against Dartford which isn't far, and E'Fleet won 2-1. Right now I am listening to Ceejay on 1radio.org. It is his 56th birthday today and 1 year since he's been on 1R. After that I am Skyping with him from 7:15 PM until 8:30 PM. I was quite tired going down to Gravesend yesterday because I had been Skyping with him the previous night and didn't get to bed until 2am. I had to be up just after 6am, so I only got just over 4 hours sleep.

Anyway it's nearly the end of 2010 and it's been a wonderful year. I am Skyping with Ceejay on New Years Eve through until after Midnight, and I might broadcast on Justin.tv, so if you want to listen to me Skyping with Ceejay, I will be on December 31st sometime in the afternoon, which is probably morning in America. The link is www.justin.tv/livefromuk or just click Webcam on my website.

Speaking of my website I do need to update it, first I am taking the Xmas background down and replacing it with a "Have a nice new year" themed background and then I need to add and remove a link in the links page. I will be removing a link to a hosting site because they have been liquidated and I am going to add a link to Ebbsfleet's website so you can get more info about them. Click here to see their website.

I've been having a problem with my laptop so I am heading over to Currys in Stockton tomorrow to get that sorted. Click here to see the problem.

Thanks for reading guys and I hope you have a great start to 2011.

UKGetDiscovered.com

UK Get Discovered is now available, basically it is a free service created by Ceejay for unsigned bands and artists in the United Kingdom. I am now an admin of the site and help out where I can. It has a Forum and a Facebook group. I am an administrator in the Forum and looking forward to working on UKGD. We expect it to be very popular in the future so check out the site for more information, www.ukgetdiscovered.com

In response to Derrick, who commented on my previous post. I really do not have an opinion on the riots which recently happened in London. I don't live any where near the capital so they don't actually affect me. As for the university fees which are rising, this again, doesn't affect me yet because I don't go to university, I go to college which is free.

Website Update - 14th December

I have just updated the website, the few things I have done are updated the text on the front page, I have also updated some information on the "About Me" page and also the links page, removed the links that are now invalid and edited some links that have changed. The text on my site was outdated and it did need updating so I'm glad I've now done that. Not much else to say really, there was snow outside but it's all gone now. Also, me and my friend Chris (Ceejay) are going to be working on a new project called UK Get Discovered. I have been promised an admin position on the site's forum and we are going to do work on that on Saturday. I am really looking forward to it. Most schools are on their final week now before they break up for the Christmas holidays. Middlesbrough college finishes on Thursday and I am off Friday. Northfield School, which is the secondary school I used to go to in Billingham, finishes on Friday and their holiday begins Monday 20th December until Monday 3rd January which also happens to be the 2nd birthday of my website.

Granddad has died

Sorry for not updating for a while but I've been very ill recently, I am much better now, just had a cough. Now for some bad news, my Granddad has died. He was very ill in hospital, had heart problems, this was the granddad from my mum's side, so he was my mum's dad. The sad thing about it is he was only 64 which is still very young. He died on Thursday 9th December 2010 just around 8:00 am. Funeral arrangments have been made for next Thursday (16th Dec), however I will not be able to attend due to college. It will be a non-religious funeral with his favourite music played, the songs he enjoyed was "New York New York" and "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. He was a nice guy anyway, and may he rest in peace.