Theatons Blog

I’ve been away for a hot minute. Touring different regions and bloody areas. Been to Swansea, that was an interesting one. Went to Wigan. Not my greatest place, full of bloody weridos and inter-breeders and all that; the fluddy seven fingers.

So, i’ve neglected the blog. It’s been pretty hard with my new projects and having big and little dog about. I thought I’d come back at you with an informational post about something I’ve been using again that I used to use on a regular basis, concrete vibrators. Before I got into the old web development game, I was a foreman with a building company. The money was a lot better than web dev., but I have most web clients off the books now and am moving into new Pastures. So, here it is, my top three industrial concrete vibrators:

First of all though, for any of you who don’t know what a concrete vibrator is, it is a machine used to vibrate concrete with the aim of releasing air and excess water. The benefit of this of this is longer-lasting, stronger concrete. It particularly helps reduce the chances of building getting lines of split concrete, which can require buttresses to reinforce the building.

3 – Vibtec Elite 250C – This unit is one commonly used on building sites throughout the UK due to its good value of money. There are certainly a few units on the market at a higher price, which don’t meet the standard of the 250C. However, a compromise in price is always going to lead to a compromise in quality of the concrete. Vibtec Elite 250C has a water retention of 1.2 cm2 for every meter squared and an air retention for 3cm2. If you are a new construction firm, this is probably what you want to get as it is not going to break the bank and is more than good enough for small residential projects. However, if you are building a bit more up market, I would recommend getting something which expunges more air.

2 – Shapa Revolution 3A – The Rev, as it is called in the trade is a unit I only got yo use once. As the construction company I worked for only upgraded from the Vibtec a few weeks before I left for the web game. It has an almost industry leading water retention level, at just 0.7cm2 for ever meter squared and an equally impressive 2.2cm2 air retention level. This is good for building larger building of 5-10 stories in height.

1 – Navco Tech 3000 – This is a unit I just used a few days ago, while visiting a friend in London, where he is building a new 35-story building. Its an absolute beast with a water retention level of just 0.24cm2 per meter squared and just 0.9cm2 air. The unit is extremely large and can take up to twenty tonnes of concrete. It is also very slow to process the concrete, but with those levels and the need for extreme concrete strength in large building this is simply the only unit to use for major construction projects.

Hope you all found that enjoyable.

Recently here in the Hotel we’ve had a few moths in the room.
I don’t have a problem with moths, or any animals really, that is until they start flying round my face.
When i have the light on near the bed and with a book or laptop or night, they have a habbit of flying right into your face.

Anyway, today I managed to find the biggest, fattest moth in the room and take a few photos of him.. .as follows:

How would i describe him (for people searching for photos of this moth)..
He was photographed in South Africa, in Durban, he is brown with a big black and brown wings. Very common and with a big white bushy body and huge atenna.

Interesting moth info
The other day on radio 4 I was listening to ‘matrial world‘ (one of my fav radio 4 programs) and they were talking about solar pannels as collecting energy from the sun. So where do moths come in .. ? Well they were saying that efficience is currently only X% but using modern day materials to utilize the most modern technology, they can build a material that is basically like a moths eye, super super black, and its X% more effecive.. here is a link to some info i found about this:

• Radio 4 Material World about Moth Eyes as Solar Pannels
• Tree Hugger blog article on using moth eyes

Anywa.. more pics..

Last and final picture of this brute..

Soiling my pants
In the last SA blog entry i spoke about the best restaurant, ‘la casa nostra’, well it is.. but don’t go overboard on the chilli !!
I made this mistake and the next day, was lying on the bed when i farted and it didn’t ‘feel’ right. I asked chloe to smell bcuz i thought i shit my pants, anyway she said i had jokingly.. i rushed to the toilet and sure enough, a small explosion of watery shit had just occured in my underwear.

and again..
I thought it was all over, but the next day me and chloe were on the beach, going for a walk, when i farted and again felt something come out. This time it was worse… i felt it dribbling down my leg inside my shorts. I told chloe i couldn’t go on because i’d just shat myself but she didn’t believe me. I ended up having to sit in the sea and let it rinse me clean.

Gateway
Gateway is a huge shopping centre / restraunt place with lots of apartments, cinema..etc We have eaten a lovely curry there at the Indian called Gateway to india and also tonight eaten at a greek restaurant called ‘Plaka‘.

Here’s a few photos..

Here’s a photo of Mom and Chloe walking through gateway to the restaurant.. purely to show that SA is not all 3rd world with mud huts (There actually corregated iron)

Some pictures of Chloe and I cuddling and being all lovey dovey.

More lovey with giggles and laughs

Me and Chloe eating from our ‘Vegge Platter’ at Plaka

What did we have to drink
The waiter was passionate about making cocktails and was actually quite good at it (instead of just thinking he is and being crap).
Gail had some kind of red champange with veuve cliquot.. (pic to follow) while chloe had a pina colada and i had my sobering fruit juice mix.

Gails red cocktail. .

More Gail in all her beauty

Chloe’s coconut pina colada.

Okay okay okay… one last picture of the love birds..

Yesterday and Today has really been about finding our feet over here, and settling in to our hardcore exercise reigeme.
I have put on lots of weight over the last few months (too much sitting and typing) as you can no doubt see from the pics below of my fat face. The boys in SA here are saying its a sign i’m doing well, but their wrong, its a sign i’m doing sweet f* all.

The last few days we’ve eaten night meals at a indian, which was very nice, and then tonighht had a huge big fat meal at my favroute SA restraunt ‘ La Casa Nostra ‘ - Always fully booked and very friendly / family atmosphere, they’ve now decided to take bookings as their just so constantly fully booked.

As usual, enough yap yap, i’ll let the photos do the talking..

Me and chloe eating breakfast..

Me and mommy at breakfast

Typical healthy breakfast constist of:

• Huge bowl of mixed fruit
• Croissants
• Natural fruit + nut yogurt

This morning chloe fancied a waffle with mayple syrup… Stodge gallore !

Me pulling faces playing with the camera

Our typical reigeme in the gym will go as follows:
‘Air’ machine as i call it, ‘cross trainer’ .. maybe others call it ? On level 15 for 15 mins. 200kal.
Stepper on level 11 for 10 mins - 120+ kals.
Circuit training on lots of different weight machines while running inbetween timed sessions.
Finish of with a 2,000m row avg 2:00/500m.

Here is me at the gym.. pre sweat and showing the gut !

We also went of to Zimbali today to check on the progress of the new house.
Here is chloe taking a photo of me taking a photo of her Audi A4 hire car in background.

The new house is looking nice and well finished. Here is shot from the front.

All the bedrooms and bathrooms are enormous.
Here is a picture of the largest shower i’ve ever seen in my life.

Me in the sports shop testing out the putters (no buying is taking place, too skint + i suck at golf !!)

More photos will come and most posts will follow.
In the book store i just picked up a book about a man getting stuck in a venesulian prision which sounds good. . . yes i know, spelling throughout my entire site is terrible but i’m too lazy to care.

Book review of ”Ronnie - The Autobiography of Ronnie O’Sullivan ” by Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Overview
This book is wrote by Ronnie and details his life from a young child, right through to about 2003 and the challanges and drama’s he has faced coming from parents with nothing, through to a snooker world champioin.

Read Duration
This book took me approx 3 days of mixed 1-2 hour sessions. Very easy read with big font, big line spacing, and short lines.

My Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book.
Being a passiontate fan of snooker, especially Ronnie, i really enjoyed reading this and getting to know more about one of the players i like to watch. The book provided me with a completly new light and understanding of Ronnie and the challanges he has faced growing up, combatting what seems to be, a constant state of serious depression.

Rating
8/10 - Very easy going read, written in a very colloqual mannor. A must read for any Ronnie or snooker fan.

Hello Readers,

Chloe, Gail and Myself arrived in South Africa today. The first day of our 2.5 week stretch of what will hopefully be an exercise fuelled holiday interlaced with basking like stuffed fished on the warm sand with cold jelly fish invested water lapping our feet.

Timeline
Monday: 1pm - Leave house UK
Monday: 7pm - Plane leaves Heathrow for Johanasburg
Tuesday: 7:30am (SA Local time, 5:30 UK time) - Arrive in Joburg
Tuesday: 11:00am - Leave Joburg for durban airport ( 1 hour plane journey, had been delayed)
Tuesday: 12:00am - Arrive at durban airport
Tuesday: 1am - Arrive at hotel for the next days Click here to see Beverly Hills Hotel in Durban
Tuesday: 1am - 6pm - Sleep outside by pool

Anyway, enough yap yap, here’s the photos from the day..

Here is Mark (from Hotel) pushing the bags for us, Chloe in the middle and Gail on the right after arriving in durban.

Mark from Beverly Hills hotel picked us up in this 4.2 ltre range rover sport. In the glove box ready he had chilled flannels and drinks for us. Also worth noting he was a good safe driver.

Me loading up the car

The hotel is really nice.. here is the view from the room… full 180 degree view of sea, nice waves, rocks, sand, confy seats with brollys, pool.. wireless.. does it get any better than this..

Here’s a couple of room photos

Room photo #2

We are currently staying in Disney Land (Yacht and Beach Club) and on our recent visit to EPCOT went on the boat tour which takes you round the greenhouses and indoor tropical gardens.

During our boat trip, they told us you could have a backstage tour of the greenhouses, so appropriately called ‘Behind the seeds’.

Here are my pictures which being a massive hydro / high tech growing fan i really enjoyed..

NFT Cabbage

Experimental ’swirly’ cabbage. The guide did admit this method is actullay not that productive (obviously) but was there more for the crowds.

“A Frame” hydroponics. Mainly growing individual chives in rockwool cubes, roots sprayed using misters.

This is the coolest and by far the most efficient (greenhouse space) and simplest areoponic system i’ve seen to date.

It is basically a 10 inch (roughly) pipe with a series of 45 degree joins in it with netted pots in. These contain rockwool cubes with various herbs and plants in. There were 10 or so of these all on a moving rotating rail. The water is not misted in as with traditional aeroponics, but instead just dribbled down the top of thie pipe on a intervaled timer.

So basically the water just runs down the middle of the pipes, over the roots and any excess water just dribbles out the bottom.

I’ll let the pics explain more..

They also had a series of tomato plans which went round on a rotating rail. For 3/4 of the time they spend going through this rotating cycle they were misted with classic aeroponic misters.

Photos.

.

The big tube you see on the right is part of their air ventaltion system, basically just to regular humidty

Disney have various moulds for some of their crops. This is a picture of Chloe holding a pumpkin that has been grown inside a plastic micky mouse head mould (with ears).

Most plants in the greenhouses are grown up in the air to keep them of the ground and away from any bugs. The whole operation runs like clock work and everything is tighly controlled. This is a techy gardners dreams !!

Here you can see me standing next to some tomato and squash plants which are grown up in the air. The benefit of having the pumpkins grown in the hammocs in the air like this is that they are very airated and can yield very big fruits.

These wierd fruits.. can’t remember what there called, look like giant cucumbers hanging down, but there not. There somthing like snakes hanging down.. Pic:

This plant is really cool, it grows doewn in a big tube with this big ball at the end.. very wierd..

More giant pumpkins (undeveloped), big mellon things and you can also see some sprouts in the back of the back of the photo.

They do alot of growing in sand in the tropical gardens aswell. The sand is completly inert and they feed water + nutrients through underground pipes. All the sand and pipes site ontop of a 6 inch bed to lift of the ground, as I said before, all very controlled.

We also learned abit about pinapples.

The pineapple plant will usually grow for 4-6 years and produce 1 fruit every year. Every year the fruit gets weaker and weaker. Pinapple farmers will usually only harvest for 3 years before replanting. The first years harvest for buying and pinapple and eating, the second year for making canned fruit, and the 3rd year for pineapple juice

Here is a photo showing how a pinapple grows:

Istockphoto has latly been so slow, i’d rather stab my own eyes out than continue to use it.

What a shit fucking website when the things so slow you can’t do fuck all !! . .

Why is no one else moaning about this ? IF your also pissed of with the fact that its unworkably slow, please leave a comment.

A few days ago, Chloe and I picked up our dogs..
Having travelled for 8 hours on a plane ( also waiting + 5-6 hours at the airport as it was delayed ) i then had the joy of driving for 8 hours non stop.
Timelapse goes somthing like this..

1. - 5-6 Hours waiting at Orlando International Airport for delayed flight
2. - 8 hours sitting on Virgin Atlantis flight
3. - 2 hours drive from Gatwick to Warwick
4. - 15 mins transfer from Car to Van
5. - 3 hour drive from Warwick to Deep wales to pick up my dog (Alphy)
6. - 1 hour drink / chat break at farm when we picked up the dog
7. - 2 hour drive from Deep Wales to Oswestry to get home

Anyway.. The next day we also picked up Chloe’s dog.. who is really soft and really cute.
Here are the pictures..

Alphy - ( Yes spelt like this. . )

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During our stay at Walt Disney World, we have travelled round the EPCOT ‘world’ and japan has a huge collection of Bonsai trees.
Here are the trees and information about them for your viewing pleasure.

Name:   Buttonwood (Concocarpus Erectus)
Style:   Driftwood
Approximate Age:   150 years
Exhibitor:   Mary Madison
On loan from Bonsai Societies of Florida

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