What a fun week!

Well last week was certainly fun, to start off with me and my brother went down to Dublin to see Fall Out Boy a band who I've wanted to see for a long time but they have never come to Northern Ireland. We drove down on the day but despite getting a bit lost we made it in plenty of time to get a bite to eat and get to the venue in plenty of time.The show was in the Olympia Theatre which was quite surprising as it isn't the biggest venue but it added to the atmosphere.  They sounded great that said I wasn't that fussed on Joe's (the lead guitarist) solo spot, would much rather they had played another song and just have him shred the same for the drummers solo spot. People love to hate them but they are definitely one of my favourite bands and I'm really glad I got to see them live.

This is a picture that the band got taken at the concert, me and my brother were at the back on the ground floor so you can't see us

The second thing I did last week which is now a weekly thing was play five a side football (soccer to my American readers). I've always been a fan of playing and watching football and its really nice playing again. I probably played football the majority of lunchtimes and a fair amount of break times at high school. The leisure centre we go to has eight separate artificial five a side pitches which are fantastic  and you don't have to worry about the ball going out unless you hit it really high. It's a great workout and its fairly cheap.

This is the type of pitch we play on

And finally on Sunday I went paintballing for the second time, my friend decided to organise an outing to the same place we went last time. Unfortunately a lot of people who said they would go changed their minds or dropped out at short notice so it ended up only being six of us. It still ended up being great fun and three vs three is still pretty intense. It is also a great workout but it can be quite painful, the place we go to lets you rent padding for your torso but I ended up getting shot mostly on my arms and legs and the paintballs can leave a mark. The place we go to is called Escarmouche and I highly recommend it if you want to go paintballing in Northern Ireland, I can't link to their site at the moment as it is down but I will whenever it is up again. They are really professional and a pleasure to deal with and the site they have is pretty epic with a number of game zones from simple open areas with tires for cover to larger ones with wooden huts and towers. We are planning to go back in a few weeks with a larger number of people hopefully.

Boom headshot!

Thanks for reading!

My gear

Hello just thought I would show you guys the various pieces of equipment that I use on a daily basis including my current hearing aid, old hearing aids I used to wear and my mic/radio system among other things.

This is my current hearing aid:

It's a bit sleeker than previous versions, also they have replaced the switch and volume scroller with buttons. The single button changes which mode it is in. It automatically turns on whenever the battery section is closed shut with a battery in it. One press of the button lets me use my mic system as well as all the normal sounds it picks up, A second press of the button mutes the hearing aid so I only get whatever is coming through the receiver hence allowing me to listen to music without all the background noise. A third press of the button mutes the hearing aid completely which is useful for loud places like concerts or bars. A fourth press causes it to go back to its original mode. The other button is for changing the volume, press up to increase the volume and down to decrease it but it only goes up/down so far. I do not know what the green stuff is, I think it is to do with moisture but nobody has said anything or made any comment when its been looked at or older ones have been sent for repair so presumably its not a problem. My mum makes the fabric band herself and it works really well and is a lot more comfortable than the rigid hair band things that they originally came on.

This is my most recent hearing aid before my current one:

It is analog and has different settings rather than different digital programs. It has three settings, off, middle setting (i.e. just the receiver) and normal hearing aid. It does not automatically turn on when the battery section it closed. Unlike the digital aid, the receiver has to be plugged into a "shoe" before it can be connected to the hearing aid.

Here is the shoe and receiver separate:

Here are the batteries I use:

Here is an old analog aid I have:

Here is my current microphone/radio system on the top and the old system that I used to use on the bottom:

As you can see my current one is a lot more complex, with a screen and options an always attached microphone, charged by usb etc. The old system is powered by one AA battery, it has an on off switch and you can change between a microphone cable and an audio cable for connecting with an mp3 etc.


Here is my alarm clock, along with the vibrating pad which goes under my pillow:

Here is the docking station for the system which I currently only use with the smoke alarm along with its own vibrating pad which also goes under my pillow:

Thanks for reading, hope you found it informative and interesting!