So… The cutie pie that is Emma from Nanny Notes is ending her TEEN years tomorrow and turning into a “responsible” 20 year old woman.
That truly is the End of an Era… But also the beginning of a whole new set of new adventures.
She wanted to know of fellow bloggers all about goals and objectives that we had when we were at the end of that same era. Now that was right down my alley… I was a weirdo at 20 and had very well defined objectives and goals at her age.
You see… I worked for a company in which personal development and growth was an objective important as financial profit. (mainly because when our trainees/managers grew to a certain level we would then sell/place them to big time corporate clients).
I was a tad cocky and had that no-bull sort of atitude. I’ve blogged about that a couple of weeks back . Basically, if I wanted something I’d go for it and get it..
I think I sorta miss that part of young me… The drive and energy I had… I think that makes me realise that I’m getting old…
You know what? I think the me in the era I am now needs more of the me of the era she is in…
To Emma I only have two things to say… Welcome to the New Era, enjoy it and make the most of it… May you have all your objectives and goals turned into reality.
And I will only dispense one advise to you… WEAR SUNSCREEN!!!!
For those that know me a little better you will know that I am a bit of a petrol-head… Not in the I know everything about motors kinda sense, because believe me I don’t… but in the I LOVE TO DRIVE FAST sorta way is a totally different story…
I guess I’ve got my dad to blame on that one… you see…When I was about 6 years old my dad arrived home from a prolonged business trip loaded with 6 boxes of Scalextric Race Tracks which we promptly (and for my mum’s dispair) we started putting together straight away. The track was so long that basically took over the whole house going from the lounge and dinning room into the garden in front of the house and back inside again. That caused some envy in most of the kids in my street… But it was also loads of fun and laughter during the makeshift championship we ran for the rest of the weekend.
Last week I had the chance to introduce Tb & A to one of my biggest kid passions.
We received an invite from the guys and girls at Threepipe that look after Scalextric to come to Blogger event that happen at Cupcake in Parsons Green in London (BTW, thanks Sophie!!! You Rock!) and even though we got there VERY late (silly me decided to drive into London… which wasn’t SO bad apart from the fact that I couldn’t find where to park and then walked past the streed 3 times before finding it) the time we spent there was GREAT.
The Big Monkey was on his environment so didn’t take him long AT ALL to find his crowd and go race them in one of the sets that was set up all over the floor in the studio where the event happened. I was actually incredibly excited as to how much he loved the tracks trying each of them in turns…. And I have to say… The Olympic Games Themed Tracks look awesome! You get to run Bikes instead of car. Quite creative.
We’d gotten there a just in time for the Scalextric Racing Championship in which Tommy got beaten by a girl (GOSH he was not impressed by this feat and made me promise not to tell any of his school friends) and I was beaten by a 5 year old!!! We both got kicked out on the 1st round… oops… No comments…
Little monkey was a little harder to please… that is, until we found the Chocolate Brownies and the Scalextric cakes (available at Sainsbury’s I am told) which he proceeded to shove at his own face, my hair and the floor… And then he found out there were Cars 2 characters to play with by which point he decided the pushing the car (yes… pushing.. using the controllers wasn’t fun… he had to PUSH the cars on the track)… and to hell with whoever else was running at the time… yeah… THAT…
I hadn’t been to a PR even targeted to MAD Bloggers in quite a while so it was great to see a few faces that I hadn’t seen in a while. Still missed out on my Clumsy Off competition with Sophie though…. maybe next time!!!
Was an excellent day out… and the best thing is that it didn’t end there…
We’ve been loaded up with goodie bags (including what Tommy calls “modern yellow racing car” and not one but TWO Scalextric Tracks (a CARS 2 and a 007 Aston Martin track) to play with… erm… review and report back… So… THAT we shall do..
Starting with the CARS 2 Track that came out as a companion of the new Disney Pixar movie where we join Lightning McQueen and his rival Francesco Bernoulli in the ultimate Disney/Pixar Cars 2 adventure speeding along the huge Scalextric Start circuit which represents McQueen’s iconic “95” race number.
It comes with instructions on how to put together another nine alternative circuits (bridges included). And over 7m of track which you can then extend by buying spare pieces and being as creative as you can be.
The 2 controllers for the the cars have two-position selector switch which allows the driver to choose slow or fast speed settings to reflect the driver’s experience (of course we didn’t know that when we put the track together so we had a SERIES of incidents with cars flying out of the tracks… in special when Vic joined us for some racing fun. Should have read the manual… but I’m a man… man don’t usually do that…
The Scalextric START track has a very easy push-together, pull-apart system keeping assembly time down to a minimum and making the build enjoyable and quick for adults and children. The set contains bridge supports so that a fly-over section can be created. The vehicles are tough and robust… although… I have to say that Lighting was abit worse for wear after flying against a wall a few times… And we managed to take apart Francesco’s wings… but that is okay… Vic fixed it with some acrylic glue… don’t ask…
All in all… It is a great fun for kids 5 years+ but if you want to be adventurous like I was trying to teach Alex to race them (he will be 2 soon… need to get him in the right way, right?!?!?!) and see him flying the cars out of the track and laughing at itI’m sure you will have LOADS of fun too…
Other thing! I love the attention for detail on the cars! And the “Ciao McQueen on Francesco’s backside actually made me laugh… I am SOOOO juvenile… LOL!
Another great Christmas idea fro the Urban Vox HQ…
Me being me of course took quite a few photos which I’ve uploaded a few to Flickr (you can see them by clicking here) But I wanted to end this post with some humour… and the Little Monkey provided the BEST opportunity ever… You see… I had this dog when dad bought me my 1st Scalextric set… and I remember making the car race just so the dog would chase the car, which always made me laugh LOADS!
Well… if I EVER needed proof that Big Monkey really IS too much like me all I had to do was watch this video of Little Monkey chasing the cars as Big Monkey raced tem… And well…I thought I should share the laugh with you guys… hehehhehe… Enjoy!
Now… the 007 Aston Martin Scalextric Track is more of a grown ups toy… so well… THAT shall be reviewed by a more… erm… grown up panel… Coming soon ;-)
I have been busy taking pretty pictures last Sunday and in a nice brake from studios/indoors photos I’ve managed to book the two shoots I had for the weekend using the Wimbledon Common as locacation.
I did some Pin-up photos there before with Lottie (from LottieLoves.com) based on what was sort of planned for the photos I thought it would make sense. One of them was a Fun. light-hearted Family Portrait with Emma and her parents that were visiting her in London. I think I might have had just as much fun doing the photos as they had climbing on trees etc for me to take the shots (thanks guys… you were awesome).
The second shoot was a bit more adult oriented doing some profile photos for an Austrian Dominatrix. I have to say it was… well… somewhat interesting doing them… LOL! (I might post some of the photos later after I get them through Photoshop).
There is no other way to say it how much I love being behind a camera… I am AWFUL at focusing in one thing at the time… but for those few minutes I am clicking away I forget everything else… The 2000000000 things that are always boiling in my head disappear and there is just that… And is incredibly peaceful too…
I talk a lot about how it is important to make life fun in this blog… But so far THAT is the best description I could find for it. For me THAT is fun and I try to make sure my subjects feel the same way too (photos are always a lot better when you enjoy what you are doing)…
Sometimes all it takes is a couple of hours in a day doing something you love to do to give you that little boost of energy and inspiration that you need to face a week you know for sure will be a hard one…
Now bring it on week ahead… I am definitely ready for ya!
Hi, My name is Yuri and I am a Designer/Photographer/FilmMaker and I used to be a PC… No argument anyone could give me could ever convince me to switch from Windows to Mac… One day after spending 3 hours importing video from my camera to the computer to be able to edit just to realise that the file was too big to be edited on it without crashing every 15min…
This is when I joined the dark side… And man… They say that no one that tries a MAC ever goes back…That it becomes an addiction and you can’t really imagine your life without it ever again… Well… it is true… Incredibly annoying… but it’s true…
I have seen the error of my ways and gave myself to the dark side of geek… and there is one person to be blame it on… The guy that made GEEK become COOL: Steve Jobs. (Or should I say turn NERD into GEEK???)
He was a Genius… Not because he introduced a new concept in the market (because let’s face it… he didn’t invent Laptops, Tabless or MP3 players or Smart Phones…) but he sure made them into something that looks cool, and something that WORKS great…
Soon all the cool kids had their iPhones and other things… An well… THAT is where you see how much of a genius Jobs was?!?!?!
There isn’t a lot more that could be said about him that hasn’t already been told… So…
I am proud to say: I AM A MAC
R.I.P. Steve Jobs
1955-2011
“The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come… For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honour”
When I got started with the UrbanVox brand of blogging (go on… laugh if you want…it is still the best description!!) I had taken the decision of blogging about all things urban… I had decided that THAT would be my thing… and for a time that is exactly what I did… For a While I even covered the Latin Party Circuit and was actually paid to be there and take pretty pictures of pretty people and blog about it. It was fun…
Ah… the good old times… I kinda like to remember when I first moved into London… Which is what my first guest-blogger in quite a while will be talking about today… Well… Ranting about… but is a good rant (made me laugh loads… hehehe)…
Ladies and Gents, I leave you in the capable hands of the author of The Nanny’s Notebook Nanny Ump herself …
So… The cutie pie that is Emma from Nanny Notes is ending her TEEN years tomorrow and turning into a “responsible” 20 year old woman.
