Big Adventures, Little World

The NBA is the United States’ National Basketball League and is the biggest and best basketball league in the world featuring the best of the best players. They have played pre season games in London for a number of years now, but this year marked the first year that they were to play a regular season game in London. Not just one game though, it was two games being played over two nights.

So on Saturday night we made our way out to The O2 Arena to see the New Jersey Nets take on the Toronto Raptors. Now let’s be honest, they hadn’t exactly chosen the best teams to play the games in London, but due to some last minute trades, New Jersey had picked up one of the best point guards in the league and recent All Star in Deron Williams, while both teams did have quite a few decent players, though not really super stars.

Having never been to The O2 Arena before, that was an experience in itself! It’s not just a stadium but an entire entertainment district including exhibitions, cinemas, night clubs, bars, restaurants, and of course the 20000 seat multi purpose entertainment venue. The arena is huge and we were sitting up near the back on the fourth level and looking straight down with a view over the whole court, which made everyone on the court look tiny. The place was pretty much full as well and made for a good atmosphere, although it was nothing like I imagine an NBA game in the US to be like at all.

After New Jersey had won the game the night before 116-103, Toronto were out to make amends. I didn’t want this though as I was going for New Jersey because of Deron Willimas, Elese however was going for Toronto because they are dinosaurs. Once the game started there wasn’t really too much going on though, and it wasn’t the most exciting of games. There was at least some great bits of play and some impressive dunks, and seeing some of top basketball players in the world made it great watching nonetheless. It wasn’t until the last quarter things really started to get interesting though with New Jersey coming from behind to put the game into overtime. Overtime began and went basket for basket until Toronto pulled out by 3 with about 10 seconds to go. New Jersey called a timeout and then on the inbound play, Sasha Vujacic made a big 3-pointer to tie the game and send it into double overtime. The second overtime was much of the same with i going basket for basket before Toronto ended up tying the game to send it to a third overtime period! It was a marathon game that just didn’t want to end until about a minute to go in the third overtime Toronto were leading by 7 points and the game looked over. This was when I said to Elese that a minute is a long time in basketball, which was then followed by the Nets coming from no where to take the lead and end up winning the game by a point. By this time the game had been going for over 3 and a half hours due to each overtime the teams would receive another time out and two 20 second timeouts as well, all of which went for about three times their alloted time. It was an epic game and a great finish to the London trip for the teams, and as fans we couldn’t have asked for a better game to watch in the end.

Other than the game though there was a number of things trying to get the crowd involved that just didn’t seem to work like I imagine they would in the US with all the screaming and passionate fans that truly get into the game and support their team. It was the best experience that it could have been though for an NBA game outside of the US given that not many people really were supporting any team in particular and were just there to see the game. The atmosphere just wasn’t quite what it could have been, but that has now just made me want to go see a few NBA games over in the US, like a game in Madison Square Gardens in New York, or the Staples Centre in Los Angeles. Maybe for the next season!

NBA @ The O2 Arena

As of today I am now a fully qualified Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS). Not only this though, I am qualified as MCTS: Configuring Windows 7. For now, it doesn’t really mean too much, but hopefully it helps me to land some more interesting and higher paying jobs. We’ll see.

For those of you that are interested, I completed the exam with a score of 1000/1000 and took about 20 minutes or so of the 120 minutes given. I went in to it feeling a little nervous after not having done any exams in a long time, but once I sat down and got to the questions I relaxed quite a bit as I knew my stuff after all the study I had done. It all paid off in the next, and now it’s time to move onto the next book, and the next qualification. Now where’d I put my CV?

Dressed up in my Snow Gear

A few days ago I ordered a new snow jacket and snow pant for when we go snowboarding in Andorra in March. After much looking around and discussions with my sister as to what to buy (as she had been in the position of having to buy snow gear before), I finally decided on some that had enough waterproofability and breathability, and of decent quality to last me through this trip, and then however many times I decide to go again next year!

I found the ones I wanted and then after much Googling I managed to find them at very respectable prices. The jacket ended up costing me just under £65, down from £130, and I got the pant for £42.50 down from £85. So all up more than 50% off. Bargain! So here I am in all my glory, dressed up in my snow gear! No one will miss me on the slopes. Bring on Andorra! Less than a month to go and I can’t wait! Let me know what you think of the jacket and pant!

Lately I have been thinking about ways of optimising my time over here and have realised more so that to do everything I want to, I need more money. So then comes the point of how to get more money. Short of robbing the bank or having a 1 in a billion chance at winning lotto, instead I’ve decided to study. So far, this hasn’t been the best exercise at increasing my income. Partly because I am already in a job until the end of March, but mainly, put simply, studying costs money.

So far I have already spent over £60 on books, with at least another £100 to come on another 4 books, and then, on top of that will be more than £400 more to sit exams for each book. So as you can see, not the best moneymaking exercise by far. In addition to this I have also had to upgrade my laptop with more memory just so I can perform some of the exam practise tests (but let’s be honest, I’d wanted to do that anyway.

However, the end results of these 6 books and exams is a number of different qualifications, which then in turn is what will hopefully, in the form of higher paying IT roles, bring in the extra money that I need, which then allows me to save more money, to go on more holidays and see more of world.

So by the end of these exams I will have the following qualifications:

• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows 7, Configuration
• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration
• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring
• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuration

As well as this I will be qualified with two Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional (MCITP) qualifications, including Enterprise Desktop Support Technician 7 and Enterprise Administrator. SO six qualifications in all! This should give me a great opportunity to maximise my income. Once I have completed them all I’ll look into studying even more as well to see what else I can will be beneficial to me, which I’m sure there is plenty. Let’s face it as well, this is never going to be a bad thing or something I can only use on my travels, so why not go for it and get it all done as soon as possible.

Wednesday was a night of glamour, not that we were very glamourous though. We didn’t need to be seeing as we had picked up some £10 tickets to go see Priscilla – Queen of the Desert on stage in London’s West End. There is a number of theatres around the area and Priscilla was showing at The Palace Theatre located on Cambridge Circus. It is an old and imposing building that stands out even moreso because of the giant glittering shoe that is out the front and displayed on the building. It was opened in 1891 and can hold 1400 people. Our seats happened to be right near the back, with only about 200 or so more people that were further back from where we were.

Elese and I met Lucas and Kate out the front and then we climbed and climbed until we made it to nearly the top to find our seats. It’s not wonder that we only paid £10. The seats were tiny, and for Kate and Lucas their heads were pretty much between their knees. In addition to that would couldn’t exactly see the entire stage, but it was only a tiny part of the front of the stage and if we leaned forward enough into the people from the row in front of us we could just see it all. Luckily there wasn’t much that went on in the very front of stage, so we barely missed out on anything.

The show started with a welcome to all the ‘Ladies and Ladies’ in the audience and when they came on stage for the first song Lucas was looking at Kate with a stunned look and wondering what he had got himself into! It didn’t matter how far back we were though, we could still see all the glitter and glam of the performers and their outfits. And some of the dresses they wore could have been seen from a mile away! The show was great. Good fun to see and with some good old music throughout it, and it even had Ray Meagher (who played Alf on Home & Away). It probably would have helped if for Lucas if he had seen the movie and understood it a bit more, but it was funny watching him watch the show. We all had a great night and I want to get back and see another show, maybe The Lion King, or Wicked, but this time I’d like some better seats!