A Packed August So Far

Usually the gap between blogs is 10-12 days at the most but its strange to only get around to writing on the 22nd of the month so rather than write a very long three week summary of what has been a good month so far, it is best to just pick out the highlights and minor negatives.

The biggest highlights have come from my sporting trips out with my first trip to Anfield in over a year on Sunday the 10th as Liverpool took on
Borussia Dortmund and what a great game to witness as Liverpool secured a 4-0 win. The chance to finally visit the Hillsborough Memorial was amazing as I was able to pay my respects to the 96 by tying my most treasured scarf to the famous gates on what was a very emotional afternoon.

Due to exiting the Challenge Cup in the last eight, Wigan have only played once so far this month due to two game weeks being devoted to the cup but Thursday the 14th saw a 224 mile round trip up to Hull to face Hull Kingston Rovers.

 A brilliant game saw Wigan seal a 14-14 draw right at the end and a fun coach trip with Jay and Jake made the night even better even though after setting off from home at 3pm, I didn't arrive home until 1.30am on Friday.

However, I was able to go to Orrell on Friday the 8th to see the Wigan U19's stun top of the table Warrington U19's in a superb game ending 36-16 to the young Warriors and in the next few weeks there will be two more trips to Orrell hopefully with a similar outcome.

Also after taking in a friendly against Fleetwood last month, I have been back to watch Skem United at home with a friendly against Burscough on Tuesday the 2nd followed just last week by the first game of the new season against Halesowen Town which saw Skem miss out on a win late on in a 1-1 draw.

Away from sport, there was some limited progress on the career front as I was invited for an interview at Festive Lights in Wigan on Thursday the 7th but sadly  have not had any response since the interview so I assume I have been overlooked for a job yet again this year.

However, the free time between job searching and trips out to watch my teams have seen four of my 2014 goals completed which began right at the start of the month when I reached 20,000 views across my two YouTube channels which I very good seeing as I haven't posted many new videos in recent months.

My visit to Anfield for the Dortmund friendly saw my goal of attending a game this year fulfilled but hopefully it won't be the last but the biggest accolades came with two of my gaming goals completed and two that have ended far quicker than expected.

By reaching 138,526 TA and 98,280G it means that I have earned more TA points and gamerscore in just over eight months this year than I did in the entirety of 2013. That in a way shows that I have had far too much free time this year to have made so much more progress than at this time last year and if the progress continues it will my best year of gaming Xbox wise since I began back in 2007.

Despite there being only nine days left this month which will see a mini summary after such a big coverage in this post but the trend of a packed month may allow for more content as follows...

• The trip to Widnes next Friday which will complete the goal of visiting every Super League away ground in one season with the obvious exception of Catalan which has proved illusive but hopefully will be a goal for 2015 but I can still say I will have visited all UK based teams.
• A third visit of the year to Langtree Park but for a change not for an actual game as I will be attending on Thursday for the local launch of the late Steve Prescott's autobiography.
•  Hopefully the long wait after my interview could see an happy ending but if not an interview for another job maybe the best hope for success.

Seven Gone Five Left

A busy end to July means that the usual duo of updates to end a month will be combined in this post to summarise what is hard to believe is the seventh month of the year.

The summary begins where the last post left off, in the third week of the month and the 17th which featured a re-design of my magnetic layout with the weekly production of the Super League preview followed by the viewing of Leeds v Castleford and the ordering of a special Liverpool shirt in time for the new season.

Friday began with the signing off of the World Cup reports with the afternoon focusing around the trip to Wigan for the A&L meet up and the home game against Hull that followed which saw Wigan ease to a 56-10 win and complete a good day out with friends.

Saturday began with the fallout from the Wigan game namely the traditional takeaway and the uploading of videos and pictures captured during the game before bed and the Wigan trend continued into the daytime as I made the trip to Orrell to watch the Wigan u19's face Hull's u19's with Wigan claiming a 38-0 win. The early evening saw the catch-up viewing of Preston v Liverpool with Liverpool coming from behind to win 2-1 followed by the viewing of Catalan v Wakefield and a short session on Rayman Legends to finish the day.

Sunday continued the sporting trend of the weekend with the F1 German Grand Prix and the writing up of my Wigan and Super League reports across a fairly quiet day with another session on the Xbox ending the weekend into Monday.

The start of a new week saw the announcement of the ticket and travel details for Hull KR away and the good value allowed me to confirm my attendance on the same day with an afternoon of blogging catch-up with the usual Monday TV schedule filling the evening.

Tuesday started well with the arrival of my Liverpool shirt which can be seen in the adjacent image and will be debuted at the Liverpool v Dortmund game on August 10th with the afternoon featuring a session across a few Windows 8 games and a blast from the past in the evening as I watched the superb film, The Green Mile.

Wednesday began with the weekly weight and Xbox update which mixed results with the afternoon focusing around research for the upcoming Super League round and an evening watching the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Thursday began with the viewing of Liverpool v Roma and sadly a late goal saw Roma secure a 1-0 win. The morning began with a reading and dissecting of the new RL structure for 2015 which led into the afternoon and the production of the weekly Super League preview.

An early writing of the preview was due to me making my first trip to watch Skem at home since the end of last season and they took on League One side Fleetwood as part of the deal that saw Matt Hughes go from Skem to Fleetwood last season and despite a 4-0 loss it was a good workout for Skem.

Friday began with a co-op session with a friend on AlphaJax as we combined to complete some difficult achievements which led into the early morning meaning a some relaxing in the afternoon and an evening of RL with the viewing of Salford v Leeds.

The weekend began with the completion of AlphaJax with a friend and a good way to mark the seventh anniversary since I began playing on the Xbox with the afternoon focusing on a session on Rayman Legends and Burnout Revenge.


An early start on Sunday saw a trip to Wigan for the coach trip up to Bradford which for the first time saw me travel with friends as Jay, Jake, Karen and Pat as well as the mascot Al Croc accompanied me on the journey and despite a good afternoon meeting up with more A&L friends, Wigan suffered a surprise 16-8 loss to Bradford and made the trip home a bit quiet.

The evening featured the writing of the match report and improved my mood as Liverpool claimed a 1-0 win over Olympiakos in their first game of the International Champions Cup which carried over into Monday which saw a bad start to the morning as I woke up to a seemingly water damaged iPhone screen.

Some research later and a full charge and the majority of the unknown water had cleared but this took up a fair part of the day meaning into the evening, I watched the usual Monday night TV programmes and had a quick go on Rayman Legends.

Tuesday began with a trip to the Concourse to cash my second HMRC refund of £52 followed by an afternoon of writing including the production of my weekly RL review and the watching of Utopia which continued into Wednesday. The weekly weight and Xbox update began the day with another afternoon of writing following including my first piece for Sport Tipster after being approached via Twitter.

The month came to an end with Thursday which began with some blogging and magnet catch-up and a superb penalty shout out win for Liverpool against Man City after a 2-2 draw and the afternoon saw the writing of the weekly RL preview which was earlier than usual due to Wigan playing in the evening.

The late afternoon saw me make the trip to Wigan for the usual A&L meet and later on the Wigan game against Salford which saw the Warriors secure a 45-4 win which was followed by a trip back to the Robin and a nice chat while walking home a new friend from A&L and the night ended with the traditional takeaway and having to wait for the bus home while being spoken to by a group of drunks at the bus stop but I just replied to questions of where the bus was going and how the Rugby had gone but was a strange end to the month.

As for July as a whole, the prospect of my career still has failed to bear fruit despite a lot of effort and I still stand by my wish not to succumb to a return to agency warehouse work unless I am left with no choice.

Sports wise, other than the aforementioned wins for Wigan and Liverpool, it has been a good month for travels with visits to London and Bradford and the next two away visits to Hull KR and Widnes are already in the booking stage.

The biggest positive of the month of course was the huge tax refund of over £500 which meant that I barely spent a penny myself across the month due to the unexpected and muchly welcomed income.

The Xbox achievement chase progressed well continuing the run of 100+ unlocks in a month and as a result means the prospect of beating the amounts reached in the entirety of 2013 being beaten inside eight months.

On the subject of my goals for 2014, progress is certainly being made on many but three were completed during the month with the first two both coming on the seventh as I eclipsed my previous best of betting/Lotto wins by earning £317 which beat last year's haul of £311 and meant the completion of the goal to win £300 across the year. At the end of the month, I currently have earned £400 which puts the dream goal of £500 within range

The third success of the month came when I attended my 100th Rugby League game of what I call my supporting era which began officially back in 2010 and came with the trip to Bradford on the 27th with my next goal of 100 Wigan games likely to fall before the end of the current season.

The month ahead hopefully should be a busy one with the following included...

• Trips away to Hull KR and Widnes with Wigan which will mean with the exception of Catalan I will have visited every Super League ground in a single season.
• My first visit to Anfield since last August as I attend the friendly between Liverpool and Drtmund and hopefully have the chance to pay my respects at the Hillsborough Memorial for the first time.
• A visit to Orrell for the 19's game against Warrington which would have been coupled with a visit from Salford had it not been postponed.
• A trip to the launch of the late Steve Prescott's autobiography with some friends from Ancient and Loyal.
• Some career progress in the right direction for a change and talking of the right direction, a loss in weight rather than a gain.

Hopefully, the return to weekly posts will come in August but I will see how it goes.