Recently in General Category

I know it's been forever since I updated this. I feel very guilty. Not pleased with the quantity of work I have to do at the moment. 'Tis the report writing season and so my head is swamped by them. But alongside this, I have all my usual class based things to do. On top of that, my sister recently got married and that took up a huge amount of time and I made a big decision about my future.

So, sorry for not writing more, but I am still very much alive and I will write more regularly when things settle a little later in the month. Hopefully.

I've spent a little time this weekend updating my Google Calendar and my phone's calendar. Half way through I realised I could probably get them synchronised and only have to do one. And I could. Which is fabulous. It's now set up to work both ways, one updates the other whenever it's altered. If only my paper based diary was so simple to keep sorted...

(Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone)

Location:Highfield View,Leeds,United Kingdom

...it's all very secret. Don't tell anyone.

That is all.

I shall reveal in April.

I'm often in two minds about discussing the weather. For one thing, it's so fleeting - one sunny moment in this country could be closely followed by a raging storm. For another, it's deeply personal - I love autumnal weather the most for it's rich variety and colourful beauty. But the main reason I despair of weather based writing is that it's tediously repetitive.

We're currently in the grip of the worst winter of my lifetime. The worst since 1981 (I was born in 1983). Schools are closing for, what I'm sure seems to many parants, unnecessary reasons. Today, I couldn't get to my school to teach - I, along with many others, couldn't even get out of my street. It's only my fourth snow based reason for not working in my career. I know people who haven't been to school, to teach or learn, this decade yet.

I find the whole thing incredibly frustrating.

(Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone)

Location:Leeds, United Kingdom

Right now, I realise that the website has suffered from one of my usual lulls of activity. As always, a number of factors create these gaps. This time around it was work, being ill, difficulties managing time and a lack of appropriate motivation.

My job being as it is, teaching children, it often means that evenings are accounted for by marking books, planning future lessons and other uninteresting things. Accompanying this is a cloud of tiredness.

The long and the short of it is that these lulls will happen and I'll try to minimise them.

It was with that in mind that I stumbled upon BlogPress, an app for my iPhone allowing me to blog when and wherever I happen to be. So there may be more things posted here, for better or worse! This post starts the BlogPress era, long may it continue!

(Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone)

Location:Leeds, United Kingdom

An astounding infographic, showing space missions by target, country and whether the missions were successful. The bottom of the chart shows the most distant probes (the Voyagers and the Pioneers) and how far away they are (Voyager I is at ten billion miles). If you have a 4000 pixel monitor, this is what it's for.

To go along with it, all the Mars missions in one infographic.

While we're here, Voyager I had a golden record of images and sounds with it to introduce our planet to other species. This site, has copies of that particular travel brochure.

[Via The Kewl Doodz 'n' Chyx]

I've edited the Slide widget at the top of the homepage today to remove images that were not taken or edited by me. Previously, I used this widget to highlight images from various posts around the site - mainly because I hadn't taken enough images to fill it up!

But as the site has grown and I've taken more pictures, I thought it better to replace the older images with ones from my various trips. Also, many of them were from a good long while ago!

All of them have been captioned with the location and date taken, just hover over an image to pause the movement and discover where they are.

Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi-5... all social networking sites. Meaning that friends from school, family members, long-lost high school sweethearts of yesteryear, and weird people, can get in touch with again and see what you're up to. But it's not all stalker based nonsense, even in online gaming communities, people can develop circles of friends that are spread all over the world. And Buddymapping helps you keep tabs on your virtual contacts.

Using Google maps, this site helps you to create your own personalised maps and then invite friends and contacts to pin themselves to their location, adding a picture, e-mail or web address and even a link to their MySpace or Facebook pages.

I'm thinking of setting one up for my Facebook page, and for here (most likely to be added to the About Me section). Apparently, people only need to click the orange button to add themselves to the map - they don't need to register.

Let me know what you think.

[via BBC's Click]

As you've probably no doubt noticed, photography has become something of a hobby for me recently. There's something quite nice about going to places and finding ways to frame their lovliness and then displaying that to the world.

This summer holiday I went around quite a few places - some local, some on my long weekend to Cheshire - and the main focus was, alongside relaxing, taking photos.

Now, I know how boring and uninteresting photographs of people's holidays can be, but that's not my reason for sharing them with you. The photos are all of National Trust properties which are something I think are unique to the country. Where else in the world do you get eccentric, rich people building things in the middle of nowhere for the sole reason of looking at a pretty view? Or for hunting? Or to display their massive wealth? I'll tell you where, nowhere.

No other country has these magnificent houses, these brilliant follys, these gardens and lakes of such tremendous beauty that you can't help but fall in love with them.

I know that being a member of National Trust doesn't really suit a fairly young member of society but the good thing about it is, aside from free parking, is the free entry to their sites and let's face it, it's a massive incentive to go to them if you've already spent the money anyway...

And so I find myself planning these trips. The sole reason for going to Cheshire was the sheer number of sites around there. I found myself with a spare Friday so popped along to Nostell Priory. And every single time, I took plenty of photos. Here they are (each link opens in a new window, with photos displaying larger versions and text links taking you to albums stored at www.thomasjpitts.co.uk/gallery2:

At the end of May I went to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden, the most complete abbey in England and a beautiful Tudor style garden. It was a slightly overcast day, but a picnic was had without the interruption of wasps so everything has its plus points.

Oh, and I am now a member of The National Trust, so expect more culture based entries - especially the next one, updating more escapades!

Here are a selection of the photos I took, the remainder are available in my gallery (opens in a new window).

Click them for embiggenation.