Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

Yesterday Fox released a trailer for season 6 of 24, which finally answered some of my lingering questions left over after the immense cliff hanger of season 5, but at the same time launched a thousand more! Having now seen it (3 times!) I can safely say that this season is going to rock! The tag line this year simply being "For America to survive, Jack Bauer must die". That sentence alone sends a shiver of excitement through my veins, but it also fills me with utter dread. Jack Bauer IS 24! Can they really kill him off? How do they make a series without him? Would I watch it without him? I don't think I would! The trailer also answers another major question left over from season 5. Who is the new president? I am happy to say that it is none other than Mr Wayne Palmer, brother of the deceased David who was assassinated at the beginning of season 5. The trailer is available from: http://www.24trailer.com/ take a look! It looks a lot slicker, quicker and damn more ...

Last night I got a call from Steph's mum "Adam, it's Pat, Stephanie is here crying that her stomach hurts, so I am going to the hospital so they can reassure her". At which point I thought "OK, no worries, probably something over nothing, go see the doctor and he will tell her everything is fine". Which, as it transpired, is exactly what happened. I received the call at work, just as I was leaving, so I had to endure a half hour walk to Charing Cross, plus an hour train journey to Dartford, in which the only company I had was my imagination. By the time I had got to Dartford, and flagged a taxi down to take me to Darent Hospital I was full of worse case scenario's and panic! After I had been briefed by the doctors, Steph and her mum, it became clear to me that the baby was absolutely fine and the problem lay in Steph's "water", which showed signs of an infection - as a precaution they would be keeping her in overnight. Both of us endured s...

Apparently the length of a pregnant ladies bump should equate in centimetres to the amount of weeks they are pregnant. Any higher or any less and the doctors start wanting to know why. Stephanie, being 32 weeks pregnant is expected to have a bump 32cm long. She was told today that she is a whopping 36! That would make the baby four weeks away from delivery! The doctors now want to know if we are having a baby elephant (their words not mine), or if Stephanie is carrying a lot of water! I am actually hoping for a bigger baby because I don't want to be there when the dam that is holding all that water finally breaks! I cannot imagine that it smells particularly nice! One blessing is that we now get to have another scan, which is great news for both of us, as we had such emotional experiences during out last two visits. I do however have a slight worry over this third scan. As the baby is going to be a lot bigger this time around and a lot more developed, I am slightly concerned ...

Last night, Steph and I were sitting vegged out on the sofa, as we normally are during the week! I was telling her about a song I had downloaded on my Ipod and asked her to listen to it! As she was sitting listening to the music she felt Baby Bird starting to fidget! I was in the kitchen at the time, making sandwiches for work today, but when I came back she asked me to sit and watch! She started to listen to One by U2, and it was at this point that the baby really started to move! I was watching the ipod balancing on Steph's bump moving up and down - something that was quite freaky as well as exciting! I decided at this point to conduct an experiment. Could we determine the babies sex depending on the response to music Steph played on the ipod? I asked her to play a Spice Girls track (this is only on my ipod because I copied an old dance album and somehow have not got around to deleting it!), just to see what the reaction was. As it was playing the kicking and movement abated, and...

I was invited last week to spend the day in France yesterday with my Dad, Granddad and Jessica's boyfriend James. The itinerary was to spend some time visiting World War I battlefields, having a spot of lunch and visiting the hypermarket for some bargains. Normally the idea of World War 1 battlefields would have sent me to sleep and I would politely decline, but I thought it would be a great idea to spend the day with my Dad and Gramps, especially as I haven't really spent that much 'quality' time with Dad over the past few years. As we were only going to be there for a day we would only be paying a flying visit at one battlefield, Vimy Ridge. When we arrived I was completely awestruck about what I saw. It was as if I had landed on a lunar landscape that had been turfed over and millions of trees planted on top. I had seriously under prepared myself for what to expect. My only previous knowledge about the Great War had been gotten from Ben Elton, whom wrote "The Fi...

Having now been back in the country for two days I am in a better position to look back and write about our week in Fuerterventura, which overall was a resounding success. I had never been to the Canary Islands before, unlike Steph who had already visited Tenerife and Lanzarote. One of the reasons we chose Fuerterventura was purely because we knew that it would be fairly quiet and sedate, perfect for two parents to be looking for a rest before the excitement of imminent parenthood. The week did not get off to a perfect start however! Stephanie being the victim of sunburn after the first day, ensuring that she spent the rest of the holiday with bright red legs and applying a cocktail of creams, yogurts and other remedies in order to stop the stinging. Added to that, she spent the most of the week covered up and under an umbrella! Neither of us were going to let that beat us, after all, we have several years experience of coping with these little pickles! We were staying in a timeshare a...

Steph and I are now well into our final trimester of her pregnancy, and things are really starting to build up momentum. On Saturday we are flying out to Fuerteventura , which I have been holding as some kind of benchmark as to where we are within the pregnancy cycle. When we come back it will be the final countdown to welcoming Baby Bird™ into the world! As we look forward to a week in the sun, things back at home are changing rapidly. The nursery is starting to take shape with all new furniture and furnishings for the baby. Mum and dad very kindly brought the baby some new wheels in which the baby can travel in style and comfort - thank you Nanny and Bampy! Also, lots of little bits and pieces have started to litter the kitchen and elsewhere around the flat. The week away comes highly recommended in a lot of the pregnancy books I have read (well one!), not only because it is possibly the last chance you will get away with peace and quiet for 18 years, but will be a chance for Steph a...

Is it really only ten days that I posted my last blog? Work has been incredibly busy over the past two weeks, so being able to post a blog during work-time has been impossible, and by the time I get home the last thing I want to do is to switch the computer on! (If anyone is in interested in what I have been working on check out the Ferrari Panamerican 20,000 tour !) On Wednesday evening I was lucky enough to have been asked by my friend Stuart to go with him the brand new Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club. His brother in law was a season ticket holder and had a couple of spares. Keen to keep my tally of football grounds going I could hardly say no! Having kept an eye on the Arsenal website throughout construction of the stadium I was quite looking forward to actually seeing it in person, even if I was not too fussed about seeing the Gooners themselves, much to the jealously of my Arsenal supporting mother! We walked to the stadium by going down the Holloway Road from th...

Coming soon to the site (hopefully by the end of the week) will be news on a great event that five of my friends are taken part in. On Saturday 16th September they will be attempting to row 22 miles down the River Thames in the annual Great River Race event to raise money towards the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society. More details on the race, including a full description of the "magog", which is the boat they will be rowing, rower profiles, and further information about the Ankylosing Spondylitis Society will be added soon. They will be rowing under the name of "Oarsome 4Some", (although I preferred "4 oars and a cox"), and Skipper William Buckby will (hopefully) be keeping everyone updated via the newly installed blog which can be found (empty at the moment) at http://www.adambird.co.uk/oarsome.html .

Mum started it all off when I was a kid, making sure that I was always reading, encouraging me and giving me different books to read. One of the best things about my new job is that I can sit on the train for an hour a day (on my way home) and read to my hearts content. Since starting in April, I have probably read about 12 different books! The Waterstones just outside Charing Cross station is doing a roaring trade out of me! I have just finished a book called One Big Damn Puzzler which I recommend to anyone reading! It is without doubt the funniest book that I have ever read! Sitting on the train with someone asleep next to you as you are laughing out loud is not a comfortable experience, but I had to do this for total of nearly six hours. The people I sat next to during these times must have thought I was mad! I won't write a book review as the synopsis on the above link in all the information I had to go on before hand, and sums it up better that I could. But if like me, you l...

And so it all begins again! Millions of football supporters at work today will be sharing the anticipation and excitement that comes on the dawn of a new footballing season, every fan expecting this season to be the one that their team gets promotion, wins a cup or gets into Europe. For me as a Gillingham fan I am dreaming of a promotion campaign back to the so called 'promised land' (which most people know as the Championship). The 'promised land' was so called because Gillingham had spent all of there first 100 years of existence playing in the bottom two division and only nearly making the step up on a couple of occasions. After our five season stay, which the first three were magic (13th, 12th and 11th placed finishes), we find ourselves facing our second campaign plotting out return. As a club we find now ourselves fairly settled after a chaotic and sometimes shambolic 'transitional' period. Ronnie Jepson is now the man at the helm and for me, so far so ...

Anybody watching the F Word last night with Gordon Ramsey would have seen the feature with the giant Jaffa Cake. Giles Coren, the "posh food critic" had stumbled across a website called Pimpthatsnack.com , whereby people had been attempting to make extreme sized replicas of famous snacks or sweets. We were then shown the efforts he went to in order to produce a huge Jaffa Cake, which he had given the name "Jaffa Quake" . On the website itself you can see how people have tirelessly replicated a giant custard cream, a giant scotch egg and a huge cola bottle just to name a few! I thought that this would be a perfect challenge for Reaso, who famously ate a desert made for four people in order to secure a discount off the final bill! Incidentally he was ill for hours afterwards and felt the effects of the sugar rush for at least three days.

I posted a blog on the 21st July about problems I had been having making sure that the blog feature looks the same in Firefox as it does in Internet Explorer. This is one of the big problems right now facing website designer/developers. The reason being is that Firefox adheres to strict conventions as laid out by the W3C and Internet Explorer doesn't! Anyhows, after days of trying various things, the problem has now been fixed, thanks to finding posts on forums across the web from people posting similar questions to the one I had!

One of the most exciting times of any pregnancy is the 20 week scan. Today Steph and I went up to Darenth to have ours. We were both really looking forward to this, especially Steph. She has been feeling a little depressed about the fact that she had the first scan so early, hence the "Shrimp" moniker, but we can finally lay that to rest! Both of us were really quite nervous, although we never mentioned it to each other before hand! I could see Steph breathing quickly when she was laying on the bed waiting for the machine to kick in and for the baby to reveal itself! It was definitely worth the 21 week, (and 1 day) wait as we caught glimpses of the babies face as it yawned and it's arms waved as it fidgeted in the warmth of Steph's womb. It was interesting to see the nurse use the high tech equipment measuring the babies head, and body making sure all was as it should be - so far so good. We could have been told whether we were expecting a baby boy or a baby girl, b...

Another year, another birthday! I don't feel particularly 26ish today, but the grey hair is starting to show! Never mind - only four more years until I am 30!

Every so often Stephanie will get a full weekend off, which is great for the pair of us as we don't really see each other very often nowadays! It may seem a crazy thing to say, but for the pair of us it definitely seems that way! We decided therefore we would take advantage of the gorgeous weather and head for the coast for the day! I wasn't sure where we ought to go. I remember as a kid we always used to go to Margate with my grandparents on my Mum's side of the family, whilst my Dad's parents always seemed to take us to Dymchurch! So naturally I thought to go to either of those places, and opted for Margate, purely because of the whole Dreamland experience - even though it is experiencing difficult times at the moment! (This website is an interesting read if anyone feels like reminiscing!). So how we ended up in Herne Bay was a mystery to me! I guess I had a last minute change of mind as we driving down there or something! I always remember the most exciting part of ...

For those people who are viewing this blog in Internet Explorer you will probably not know what I am talking about, but I am after some help! If you view this page in Firefox you will see that the red and black background is missing, and only appears as a small rectangle at the top of the page! Somehow I need to fix the stylesheet code or <div> tags, but have tried everything (except the thing that fixes it) and still no luck! I would appreciate any advice!

I may well be behind millions of other people in the world who have been "blogging" or creating online diaries since the start of the internet, but I am glad to say that I have now finally managed to introduce a decent blogging "plugin" to my website. My website has been live now for just over two years, and in that time I have tried to work out just how to introduce a blog facility to the site. The discussion forum didn't really work, as it wasn't very well syndicated, but now after months of exploring different methods I am hopeful that I have succeeded! Using the excellent Blogger.com I have created an account which allows me to use my own template and host my own blog on my own site - what more could a webgeek want (they would probably want to build the whole progamme by themselves...)? Anyway, I will hopefully be posting on here now whenever I can, and whenever I feel like writing. I certainly have stuff to write about, what with learning new things a...