Through the Phases

Preparation

Not a great deal to report back on from work this week.  The first two days were taken up helping out another project that required some input.  I have a presentation coming up in a week or so on the use of YouTube which I’ll post on this blog so it might be worth keeping an eye out for that.  I’ll be talking about basic video capture, editing and publishing using a Flip Camera and YouTube.  It’s on Flip Cameras because that’s what we have available, yes I know the Kodak Zi8 has an external mic jack (sigh).  Anyway, as my friend in the army would say “Prior planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance” (the 7 P’s).  I couldn’t agree more.

Event Organisation

The rest of my week was taken up by organising an event.  For anyone that hasn’t come across it yet, Eventbrite is an excellent online tool for allowing people to register on your event.  A colleague of mine will be writing a post on it’s use soon which I’ll point to but for now some of my favourite functions include:

• You can add all the relevant event details for promoting the event e.g. map, times, background etc.
• It allows you to set up different ticket types e.g. organiser, speaker, delegate etc.
• It allows you to customise the completion page and confirmation email automatically sending it upon completion of the registration form.  It also sends you a copy just for info.
• It allow you to embed a widget into your own webpages/blog etc.
• You can download an iPhone app for the day to check delegates in.

Fathers Day

We invited my parents over for a fathers day meal on Saturday night and I think it’s my favourite meal that we’ve ever cooked.  We started off quite simple with grilled goat’s cheese on a nice baguette accompanied by some rocket and caramelised onion.  I was actually surprised how easy caramelised onion was was to make.  We then had chicken cacciatore for a main with a chocolate pate for desert, followed by cheese and red wine.  We always have slices of baguette available to dip in olive oil and balsamic vinegar which I’d recommend anyone try!  In terms of drinks we started with our favourite mojito followed by some champagne from a previous birthday or something.  For anyone interested, we use the following recipe for mojito’s.

Elderflower Champagne

My wife and I set out the other night picking some elderflower heads to try and make some of our own homemade elderflower champagne.  If it works I’ll post the recipe.  We’ll find out in two weeks!

Visiting Peacocks

I also fed some peacocks this week which isn’t all that usual…