Mark Warner's Blog

Wedding Photos

Mark Warner — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 08:58:11 +0000

Coming soon

Wedding Video

Mark Warner — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 17:35:06 +0000

Mark Warner & Rebecca Wallace got married on 27th May 2011. The following videos were taken by a good friend, who has done an amazing job.

The ceremony took place in Kenilworth Castle’s Gatehouse, and was followed by a meal at our favourite eatery from when we were dating. The day was rounded off with dancing at Leamington Dance Centre where we were joined by friends from dancing and work.

We’d like to share the video of the day with all our friends and family.

Wedding Ceremony – Kenilworth Castle

Wedding Dinner – Orange Tree, Chadwick End

Wedding Dance at Leamington Dance Centre

Bracknell 2010

Mark Warner — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:12:12 +0000

On 26th April 2010 I competed in the Bronze category in Bracknell having previously won the Pre-Bronze category in 2009. I placed 4th out of 6. 1 place lower than I would have liked.

This was however one of the most enjoyable competitions I’ve done as I didn’t get as nervous whilst on the ice (I was still very nervous before stepping on the ice though). I nearly fell on Salchow Loop but didn’t and more importantly didn’t let it spoil the rest of the performance as I remained calm throughout… although I’m not sure I was breathing whilst skating!

Photographs coming soon…

Coventry 2010 – Jumps, Spins & Spirals

Mark Warner — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:03:03 +0000

The first of the 2010 closed competitions at the Coventry rink, organised by Coventry Ice Skating School Club.

I was the only person within my category and consequently won 1st place despite falling on my Flip jump. However it was a fun competition, made all the more so by all the support from the crowd of Coventry skaters of all ages (and their parents) when I fell on my Flip jump. The photo on the podium was taken quickly in between me teaching Learn to Skate Classes after the competition.

British Adult Championships 2010

Mark Warner — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:36:48 +0000

My second year at the British Adult Championships in Sheffield and I was more nervous than last year.
The following are a selection of photographs taken during the competition. Hopefully if I work really hard I’ll be standing on the 1st place podium next year! A video clip of my performance is also available on this page. Sadly I failed to land Salchow Loop and also nearly fell over on Flip jump but I still got a very good mark especially considering this was under IJS marking.

Blackpool Skating Festival 2010

Mark Warner — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:29:25 +0000

Tuesday 6th April 2010 – I’m now convinced that ice skating has progressed beyond a hobby and is now an obsession, having driven a 5 hours round trip from home to the Ice Rink at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in order to skate for a total of 4 minutes… 2.5 minutes warm-up then 1:40 programme.

Accompanied by my coach, and supported by a number of other skaters from Coventry and Cannock I performed my programme on Blackpool’s Ice Rink which is much smaller than I’m used to. With my long legs and a habit for skating quickly this proved to be more of a challenge than I’d expected.

My sincere thanks go to all the Coventry & Cannock skaters that cheered me on during my programme and also for the gifts that were thrown onto the ice when I finished my programme. Thank you all this was a really nice surprise and very much appreciated!

Sadly no photographs of the performance exist. However below are a couple of pictures taken immediately after the competition in a studio set up in the rink.

Guildford Open 2009

Mark Warner — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:30:15 +0000

Only my third open competition, and my first time to the Guildford Ice Rink which is part of a very impressive sports complex. Held on 9th July 2009 at a very reasonable time, 10am.

The nice touch was that the men’s categories received medals with the image of a male skater. A photo of this will be added shortly, a picture of the very large cup can be found below.

My programme was changed shortly before the competition in order to meet the requirements of the Bronze category event and to reflect some of the jumps I’d been learning recently. Salchow Loop jump was always a challenge and unfortunately it didn’t quite go right on the day. I also forgot part of my step sequence, but most annoyingly messed up my first spin. However I may be being too hard on myself as my marks were good compared to other skaters.

The competition was followed by a Skate Camp in the afternoon which was both challenging and enjoyable.

Donal MacIntyre, who continues to skate following his appearance on Dancing on Ice, performed the presentations.

Bracknell Open 2009

Mark Warner — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:21:00 +0000

The Competition was held at Bracknell’s Ice Rink on 27th April 2009. My event started at 7:05am so it was an early start for the 1.5/2 hour drive to the rink.

The competition was well organised and I enjoyed the day, especially as I won the Pre-Bronze category.

Bracknell Open 2009 – Video

Mark Warner — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:57:36 +0000

Video clip from the Bracknell Open 2009 held on 27th April 2009. I came first in the Pre-Bronze category. Photos of the event can be found here.

Apache2 Configuration

Mark Warner — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:16:58 +0000

After much frustration trying to get Apache to run corectly under EeeBuntu (Ubuntu based Linux distro) I finally discovered that the solution was actually a simple one.

Apache ran fine, and MySQL, PHPMyAdmin and PHP5 were all installed and working correctly. However it was not possible to place a web site into a folder location within my /home/myuser/www folder.

The steps to solve this were actually very simple:

1 – create the www folder and create a dummy index.htm page to test the site with.

2 – Create a new Virtual Host by using terminal to issue the following commands – changing your site name and user folder as necessary.

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite

gksudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite

change DocumentRoot line point to /home/myuser/www

change Directory line to point to /home/myuser/www

3 - Ensure the user account folder can be accessed by Apache by changing the permissions.

chmod +x /home/myuser

4 – Secure Apache

gksudo gedit /etc/apache2/ports.conf

change the Listen line to read

Listen 127.0.0.1:80

5 – Enable your new site usinge:

sudo a2ensite mysite

6 – Change folder permissions to ensure the home folder and the user home folder can be browsed by other users, else Apache will return messages about files not found.

7 - Restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

8 - Test your new site http://localhost/