Still There by Sam Marsh 2009 (c)

If people show as colours,
you’ll see me show as black,
I’ll shy away from others,
but always smile back.
I hate the way my life is,
See only the negative side,
I’ve wasted many chances,
and let the others slide.
I feel so down and desperate,
so lonely and so blue,
I spent my days just wasting time,
wishing i was with you.
I see your face in my dreams,
everytime I close my eyes,
I know I have to let you go,
to lead our seperate lives.
I have to stop the crying,
the tears and sleepless nights,
I have to stop the dreams I have
about when it used to be right.
I think of all the places,
the things we did and when,
I have to stop myself from wishing,
that we were still back then.
I need to let you go,
and to accept our seperate paths,
but I still find it hard to take
we’ll never share more laughs.
I’ll never slide your hair back,
and kiss you on your neck,
I’ll never buy you presents
and never get one back.
I’ll never see you smile,
or talk of dreams to come,
I’ll never wake to watch you sleep,
and think of things to come.
It makes me sad to think,
that its the end of us,
It makes me sad to think,
that you’ll end it just because.
It drives me insane to know,
that this I cannot repair,
doing what I do for a living
It drives me to despair.
Every night I try to accept it,
And make a deal with the other side,
But every morning I still wake up,
and its your face I try to hide.
Theres nothing I can do,
I know,
to get you back with me,
So I dont know why I’m writing this,
my sad and lonely plea,
you’ll never get to read this,
and know how much I care,
but I wish you did because I wish
how much you were still there.

Sam Marsh 2009 (C)

Well nothing really to update with really. The routine of work Monday – Friday with football in Wednesday has been well and truly established, with Saturday/Sunday being the dedicated lads days!

The last 2 weekends Raj, Lockwood and me have been hitting Reading hard- the first weekend we went to Purple Turtle and Pavlovs and had a quality night chatting to any woman in sight about how old Raj looked with his movember tache and dancing in the beer garden under the heat lamps!

The week just gone we had a works night out in a pub near Bracknell so we ended up sinking about 10 pints of Stella and got in about 1am for a 6am wake up which was not fun (couldnt find our way into the station for about 10 minutes!!). That Friday, still feeling not fresh, we went out to Revs and Sakura with Ste and Nick and there mates and had a class one – blagged our way into Sakura VIP and was drinking Raspberry Martinis all night – no wonder that gay guy kept chatting me up lol. Spent yesterday doing not much, got a taxi to Earley to watch the footy at Raj’s with them lads and walked home which took about an hour at least – now i find myself sat here waiting for the internet to provide UFC 106 news!

Wow, its so crazy to think the last i blogged was on my return from the US! So much has gone on since then its unreal.

The weekend after i went up to Birmingham with Gibbs to see Lockwood and go to some crazy house party which was every bit as crazy as imagined – think 100+ people in a 4 bedroom house with a live band in the front room, it was siiiiiick – gibbs went as some messed up Marcelle Marceaux (sp) , i went as some fat butcher and Locky as the joker, needless to say it was a claaaaass weekend which will definitely live long.

The weekend after (just gone) we watched the Haye fight here before heading out into Reading town for a night out which was a good laugh too, ended up in Pavlovs before heading home at 2ish with Lockwood before grabbing some nosh. 2 nandos and 2 footy games later i am back here, sober and in the working world for another 4 days then i’m off to Birmingham again i think for the Zane Lowe / Scratch Perverts gig in B’ham. Wish me luck!

Sorry for the long time beetween blogs, a lot has gone on and a lot of miles travelled!

Picking up from the previous blog, we headed out on Friday and actually managed to find the Irish bar this time around. We got drinking in there and after about 3 hours randomly met a couple – Mario and Dana, who we ended up becoming good friends with over the rest of the trip. They are really cool people – so we drank with them the rest of Friday, and we were originally supposed to go out on the saturday as she had a friend “Lisa” who apparently would love me for my accent (lol..) but that never materialised – apparently the Americans do not like young men, no matter how “cute/good looking y’all are” – crazy!

We went out on Saturday to the Irish bar again and then off to somewhere new, tried a place called Voodoo Lounge but it was wayyyy too expensive, and it was full of chinese guys in Baseball caps thinking they were gangsters – ya huh… So we headed to the “Britannia Arms”, and sank about 4 pitchers of Newcastle brown before calling it a night about 2am, even if during the process of downing my pints, a random Irish man stuck his finger in my mouth searching for hidden coins during the “Coin” game (weird man!).

The Saturday day we went to San Francisco, which was a bit underwhelming. The Golden Gate was cool, and the drive to/from San Fran was fantastic, but the place was a bit over touristy for me so we headed back after 3-4 hours.

During the following week, we were actually working in the SJ offices rather than training, so we had a little bit less energy to be out on the drink every night, but we still saw a few decent places, including an authentic mexican, 2 real authentic indians (which were amazing!) courtesy of one of our Indian born colleagues, and various other places we frequented. We also went to a “Tied house” for a team event, needless to say enough beer was consumed there to hold our reputation

The flight back from San Fran was a killer. Royally hungover from our last night in the Irish bar with Mario and Dana ($100 tab), we had to wait in the airport for 4 hours as our flight was delayed for an hour, before finally getting onto the plane and sitting there for 12 hours. Getting the taxi home from Heathrow, i was having physically keep my eyes open – horrible journey!

The week back at home has been a welcome return to normality, a bit of shopping as i wiped out my food/toiletries, and then sorting out my broadband for my flat, etc. This weekend we’re going to a halloween party in Birmingham hopefully at Lockwoods place with Gibbagio – need to desperately sort a costume ASAP!

Anyway, till next time.

2 days on and just thought i’d thought dump just before my memory refreshes and i forget it all!

Since my last blog, the weather has improved significantly – for one we arent driving through 12 inch swalls of water on the road! Its around 77-80oF here at the moment which is all well and good but we are sat in a class room where the air con is ice cold.

The Wednesday night we headed to a bar called “Billy Berks” which looked like an old american bar so we were .. apprehensive about the food, but true to form the book was definitely not a depiction of the cover, best food of the trip by far. Ended up having a few beers at the bar afterwards watching Boise St play… someone!

Last night we headed out to Gordon Biersch again for some quick food and to watch the San Jose sharks only to find out the flaming game was in Washing and as such we forgot the timezone and missed the game – typical!

Tonight heading out to try and find the Irish Bar v2 – we walked right past it in our hunt for it on Wednesday so hoping for better things tonight!

Sam

Just a quick blog while im on my lunch break in the US. We flew out on the Sunday just gone (10th) and the flight was pretty brutal to say the least – 11 hours sat on a plane (i didnt bother getting up as the plane was soooo cramped).

The fun and games started straight off the bat, getting out of baggage claiming etc we had to find the car rental place, only to find we had to get a tube basically to the Car rental building? How strange. Once there we managed to find our car and it took us about 30-40 minutes to A) Get out of the car park and b) get the car controls under.. control!

The hotel room was OK, nothing fancy and the freezer compressor makes a racket so that was promptly unplugged and defrosted. The first night we arrived we decided to head to a place called “Gordon Biersch” which was cool, had a few beers and a pizza before heading back for some needed sleep.

Monday was spent in trading before heading to a fancy resteraunt called “E & O Trading Company” which turned out to be more expensive than first thought! We followed that off by heading back to Gordon Biersch for some whiskeys and to watch the ice hockey which San Jose lost!

That nights sleep sucked, as i woke up at 4am and couldnt get back to sleep, so Tuesdays training was spent trying not to die of jet lag. Tuesday night we took it easy, had an early night and grabbed a McDonalds which is not as big as you’d expect over here. Ended up watching “Ghost Lab” also – about a bunch of yanks who run around hunting ghosts with technology. Pretty hilarious!

Anyway, this week we’re off to a few more resteraunts on the light rail train into down town, and hopefully off to San Francisco providing that the weather picks up – we had torrential and tropical thunderstorms the last 2 days with around 8 inches of rain and 60mph winds so it hasnt been the picture perfect california so far!

Sam

Well hello RSS Fiends.

After what seems like an age i have decided to return to the blogosphere. So much has happened in the past 2 weeks that i dont know where to begin.

1. Moved to Reading
2. Started new job
3. Passed driving test
4. Off to the US of A

Lets start from the top. I did indeed find a very nice place in Reading as already mentioned living smack bang in the city centre. For those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook there are pics up on there! The move was interesting, but thank the lord there is a lift because a lot of my stuff is bloody heavy. Unlike my move north from Swindon to Manc, my move from Manc to Reading did not have any casualities (RIP Digimate monitor 2007!) and went pretty much without a hitch – except for dumbass here forgetting to pack the back panel of my desk so it was wobbly as hell for 10 days!

I started my new job last Monday at BlueArc and i have been getting up to speed on all the procedures, quirks, etc and actually getting useful as soon as possible. The job itself is fun and will definitely benefit me in the long run, and it is so bloody nice to work in a large company again – such a relief.

Other than work and moving, the only other Reading stories are football and nights out. Locky and Sukh came down the weekend just gone and we went out with Raj and had an awesome time in Revs in town, definitely one for the record books. Ended up watching F1 in bed in the morning with Locky afterwards (lol..) followed by a nandos and a mega super sunday football session which was claaaaaaass.

Also started footy again after a year out, and good lord am i unfit. I played with the BlueArc lads on Wednesday and i thought i was going to collapse i felt that tired! Needless to say 10 minutes spent in goal to catch my breath back gave me enough time to admit how much of a fat bastard i now am (lol..). Played in a competitive match on Thursday night for the HP Team and we lost 7-6, but it was great to get back into it – i particularly enjoyed battering their “hard man” all around the pitch at every opportunity, hard my arse!

Finally, to top off my cracking year bar one “black mark”, i passed my driving test at first attempt with 0 majors and only 4 minors Which is a massive relief. I’m finally rocking a pink driving license, woop. This week ive got 2 more footy games then i’m off on training courses in California for 2 weeks or so which will be great, even though my sister keeps sending me stuff i have to apparently buy from abercrombie and fitch.

Anyway, off to catch some Z’s before another sickeningly early 6.30am wake up call.

Sam