So, here is a quick – and completely uninteresting – update:

July
- Attended Charlie’s graduation and graduation ball
- Went to an extremely wet Global Gathering in Stratford-upon-Avon
- Worked full time at a web development company in Cardiff as I have for every summer since Y10

August
- More working at said web development company

September
- Charlie & I spent a few days in Paris
- I moved into my new place in Swansea
- Charlie moved into her new place in Cardiff
- Discovered that the university had pretty much forgotten about our course and we had to organise it all

October
- Finished organising the course – although many important details still haven’t been sorted out
- Lots of boring university work
- Lots of web development work

November
- Even more boring university work
- Lots more web development work

So, as you can see, it’s been a pretty boring few months with lots of work but nothing particularly interesting happening. Never the less, I am intending to get back into the habit of blogging regularly.

Hopefully my next blog entry should be a bit more interesting.

Last Friday morning, 13 of us set off from Hereford to the GG site, picking our camping spot and setting up by early afternoon.  The airfield was split into 2 areas, the main arena – holding all the stages and the campsite.  The campsite was absolutely huge – but with over 30,000 people camping, I guess it had to be.  The Red campsite (nearest the arena) was so full you could barely walk between the tents; the Blue campsite was packed, but tents were not so crammed in.  Somehow we managed to arrange our tents in a circle, creating a rather large patch of grass in the middle.  Surprisingly, no one pitched a tent in this gap.

The arena was formed of several venue tents including a huge 10,000 capacity marquee called the “Electric” tent.  The biggest area however was given over to the Radio 1 Beach Stage – a humongous outdoor stage surrounded by tonnes of sand.  As always, the BBC successfully spread their branding around with huge Radio 1 logos all over the stage.

We spent the Friday evening jumping between several of the tents including the Radio 1 Beach, Global and Electric before settling in to watch Daft Punk on their first live set since 1999.  To be honest, I’ve never seen Daft Punk before whether it be live or recorded, but they were absolutely tremendous.  They certainly knew how to put on a show – really good music, and a fantastic light show.  At the time I thought this was the best performance I’ve ever seen.  I would have liked to have been to see Tiesto but unfortunately he clashed with Daft Punk – maybe next time!

On Saturday, the number of visitors more than doubled and the time the arena was open also doubled – instead of 5pm – 2am like on the Friday, this was 2pm – 6am… an all nighter!  We got to see some absolutely amazing acts throughout the night, but the highlight had to be Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim).  His DJ booth was suspended between 2 huge TV screens and put on one hell of a show.  His performance – in my opinion – surpassed Daft Punk – if that was even possible.

All in all, one hell of a weekend – roll on Global Gathering 2007.

Photos from the weekend are coming up soon.

Daibach

daibach

Most of my summer is going to be spent working for a website development company based in Cardiff Bay. I’ve worked in the same company every summer for the past 5 years so I’m very familiar with a large number of their clients and websites. I’ve got to be quite careful what I say about the work I’ve done/ am doing there, especially with regards to websites that are under development (which are pretty much a no-go area), but I might make the occasional comment.

[paragraph removed]

Another site I will be working on over the summer (which has absolutely nothing to do with my summer job or my freelance work) has been nicknamed Project Metis. This website is being developed by myself and James Gawn – my flat mate in Swansea. The site is a huge replacement for the current website dedicated to Swansea University’s student newspaper – The Waterfront. For this project, I am in charge of design and will be producing all the graphics and styles for use on the site. Expect many comments about this project as the development gets underway. We are expecting to have the public side of the development live by September, so keep an eye out!

Websites aren’t all I have planned for the summer! Next weekend I have a BBQ with some of the Comp Sci department staff, graduates and students (for more see this blog entry). Also, very soon Dan and I are visiting Global Gathering – the UKs biggest Dance music Festival.

Judging from the speed at which the past 3 weeks have passed, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll be the start of University very soon! At least I have a very busy summer to keep my occupied.

That’s all for now!