Friday, December 31, 2010

34 Years Old + 117 Days

Thursday
We have arrived back in Carraroe today. We left Castlebar in good time after having tea in Rua, a little cafe on Spencer Street in Castlebar. I liked the cafe a few moment after we ordered our food because they were really busy but still made sure that Lucy got her food straight away. So while we were still talking to Therese, whom we met there, Lucy was messing around with her food. The fact that she ate hardly any of it meant nothing. Also, it was really busy and the fact that the drinks were late too also, seriously meant nothing, because Lucy had gotten her food. Take note Classic India, that we visited yesterday in Sligo town where we were waiting around an hour and a half for our food, and that is including Lucy!



The rest of the day was cool, when we got home from Castlebar Mom had heated up the house for us and we headed out straight away, myself Linda and Sophie, to Nadias place to celebrate her 18th birthday. When we got home we saw the little monkey was up again and full of beans with mom. But all was well and we ended the night looking at Batman Begins... what an ending, in every way.

34 Years Old + 116 Days

Wednesday.

 I will remember this day the day that we visited Paul and Clair and went to "the Indian". Basically we drive up to Sligo because Linda hadn't seen her brother for christmas and we were going to visit. It also happened that Alan Potter was in town too so we saw him too. But we all went to an Indian restaurant called Classic India and we were waiting for around an hour and a half for our food, so we complained and eventually the gave us a chunk off. Not going in there again in a hurry though. We got back to Castlebar late enough but it was nice to have been visiting.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

34 Years Old + 115 Days

Everything seems stiller today. There is no sound. Everywhere is quiet. Then the alarm on my rings through the room, almost echoing, but turning it off seems to emphasise the quietness even more. It is nice, and although I had , ironically, at this stage resolved not to make any resolutions I think it is a good promise to myself to try to be in the moment more. Enjoy the quietness when I have the quiet time and that will help me learn to enjoy the loud busy time more too maybe.

34 Years Old + 114 Days

Monday Bank Holiday... of course I did not realise that it was a bank holiday until around 9:30pm when I wanted to go and buy a pizza in some shop and realised that they were all closed since 6pm.

Today I left Castlebar and made my way down to Carraroe through the grit and the dirt but the dry or merely wet road, yes, the snow melted last night and it s fantastic. When I arrived in Carraroe I drove down to my house and looked out the window where the snowman was and all I could see were the remains to a once great person, Frosty The Snowman.

I headed down to Mom and Dad where we had a little birthday party for dad. I won't write his age.... I really do not know if would mind or not, so I will err on the side of caution.

The I went up to Marts place for games, where I met up with Rich, Seths people and Wallace. It was cool, we played this fantastic game called Apple To Apple. I am definately going to buy it, but I will look for it in town, pretty sure it not there, but I think I am going that way when I am going up to Castlebar tomorrow. But that was it, did some stuff to my Alpha07 game too when I came home, finally got the time aspect working in the game, as in, now I can tell how long many days people have been in the game.

Monday, December 27, 2010

34 Years Old + 113 Days

Nice, I have finally figured out how to do something in PHP that I have wanted to do for ages, I can seperate one date from another and find out how many days have gone by. This is good for me because in my php game that i am making for browsers I can now implement my banking system and penalise people for now paying back their money on time. I always knew that I could figure this out but that I needed to figure out exactly how to do it! It wasn't even hard to do, it was just go with what is given to me in the php rule book, very much a case of RTFM basically, I just needed the time, and so, here I am at 3:30am but I have finally done it.

Anyway, today it rained!!!! yeah! It was so good to see the poor snow melting, personified in so many green areas and fields as snowmen, we have grown to know, love and hate the snow. And now, that which we know all too well is obliterating it, the rain. But we are much better equiped to handle the rain. If this were a relationship it would definately be a case of, "it's not you snow... it's me.... you deserve someone better, it is time to move on :( ", but really we are happy to see the back of it.

And so, John Reilly is going home tomorrow. Sophie asked me today if christmas is over, I told her that it was not... but in a way when you think about it, it is. Christmas is the lead up to the 25th of December and when you have come to a close on christmas day boom, you hit a brick wall, and there it is all over for another year... sorry, did I say year, I meant to say 10 months, if we are lucky.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

34 Years Old + 112 Days

Christmas Day!!!!

Yippee... today was good for a few reasons! First was that Santy came, that was the best thing! He gave all of us gifts and the kids were happy!

Funny enough another thing that was great about today was that I did not have to drive anywhere, that actually is a big deal, there are not many days that I do not drive anywhere. Now with that said I did go to church but I was driven there.

The day was a typical christmas day bar the fact that I was up in castlebar, we had christmas dinner but I am happy to say I did not stuff myself! W00t. I usually do and then I feel crap afterwards. I did a traditional visit to a Reilly family member and then home for the rest of the day.

One cool thing was that we had a kris kindle to control the expense of christmas and when were opening the gifts we got from my family we had a video conference on skype so that we were all together. That was really nice, becasue although I am happy here I was feeling a pinch of missing the Carraroe gang, and with that said I tried to call Bree, but there was no answer, by the time I realised that there was probably somethign wrong with the phone I was calling from it was really too late to call her.

We finished off the night with looking a the latest Failte Go Texas (nice house) and then we had another game of scrabble where we had our behinds handed to us again by Linda. Good day was had....

34 Years Old + 111 Days

Friday....

I was planning to go into Castlebar town center to do some shopping but I am happy in hindsight that I did not, I would have walked around the town for what! Nothing. So basically, we eventually went down to McDonalds for an ice-cream and met up with Malcolm who gave Sophie a few presents and then we went for a walk down to the lake where we took some photos of little frozen ice sculptures beside on a scream, of swans and of the grave yard that looked majestic in the sunset.

We had a game of scrable, that was class, myself John and Linda and she whopped our asses. Pretty impressive....

I went to sleep early enough too because I did not want to be awake when Santy came....

Friday, December 24, 2010

34 Years Old + 110 Days


Frosty The Snowman!!!!

Thursday... Went into town and did some last minute shopping. I have to say that when I go shopping under duress of needing to get something with a time limit on my head that I hate it!!!! Seriously it sucks. Dare I say... when I am shopping like that, I feel greedy. It is only this christmas that I am feeling this but I was shopping, or trying to, and everyone was like gimme gimme gimme, and I did not like it. Maybe I am feeling extra like this because of the brilliant film I saw last night called "Into The Wild". It was brilliant. If you have seen it you know exactly what I am talking about. If you have not seen it, then I would strongly advise that you see it.

Now, this morning, I had a break through in my little PHP game, I can finally put it up on the internet now, now that I have learnt how to use databases online. I only learnt that this morning, I had a good idea what to do and I did some reading up on it but nothing worked, eventually I just called Blacknight, my hosting and domain provider, and I asked them. They told me, I was like "duh, that's so obvious!" to myself, but it matters not, I have the know how at last.

Finally, the pic you see was taken on the 108th day I think it was, of a snowman that we built in the back yard. We named him Frosty! Happy Christmas Eve Ryan and Sarah and Rick and any other regular reader of this blog.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

34 Years Old + 109 Days

What a day it was, given to going from A to B! We set off from Carraroe at around 3pm and we were in Castlebar at around 6pm-ish. But it was a long journey! It took ages reallly because of the icey roads, and snow and other traffic. At one point I had to go out and check that we did not have a flat tyre there was so much noise coming from the car on the road. But we did get here and watched a brilliant film on tv and had a good night in!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

34 Years Old + 108 Days

Tuesday, a proper snow day! Sophie did not go to school because her teacher was snowed in. Then we built a snowman! A real genuine snowman, made of 3 parts and he was around 6 foot tall!

Linda and myself went for a walk into Carraroe and we took photos of the lake, the church and Carraroe in general. Mart and Marielle and Mom and Dad came up for a visit before we leave for Castlebar tomorrow and we all had tea and some christmas cake Mal did for us!

34 Years Old + 107 Days

Monday 20th of December.

We took Sophie to school even though it was really snowy. Then Linda took her out early and we picked up John from the Moon. We came home and that was it really. My really low point was we were out too late for me to go to karate :( That sucked alot.

I took loads of photos of the ceibh off the main road. It was reall cool, last night there was loads of ice seemingly and it was floating on top of the sea and when then the sea went out the ice was still left unmelted a layer of ice over the whole pier. It was nice so I took nice photos of it.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

34 Years Old + 106 Days

Linda went to a funeral this morning, the mother of a person she knew and walked to the church! It's the weather. So like crazy myself, Sophie and Lucy walked to Mom and Dads too.Sophie learnt alot about walking in snow I can tell you. But it was erey and strange walking. It was like the film "The Road" or "The Book Of Eli".... everywhere was so quiet and then if there was some noise, the noise filled up the whole surrounding area! If a car passed it seemed to creep up on you... everything is quiet, then you begin to hear a noise, its not coming from in front of us, we look behind and yes there it is, a 4x4 coming fast... we scamper as quickly and carefully as we can onto the side of the road amongst the snow covered but thorny briars, our feet sink in the rustling grass while the heavy wheels of the passing gas guzzler crunches and pops the snow and ice beneath itself and we wait till its past us and then its gone... and the road is all ours again, dangerous and slippery, but ours... and the frozen landscape snuggles down silently again under the white sheet of snow with the gentle lullaby of chirping birds accompanying it off to sleep

Sunday, December 19, 2010

34 Years Old + 105 Days

Saturday,

All I did really today was prepair, have and then clean up after Sophies birthday party.... one sentence, one long day... sucked a bit at time becuase there were people that had to turn back becasue they were not able to get to the party becuase of the snow and the ice...

Mart and Marielle got here though and deserve special mention for it, they walked!!!!!!

Sophie loved her day all the same. Got loads of gifts actually. We were really happy that the amount of people that did show up did, becasue the weather was really bad. Remember back on this when you are reading it in the future, the weather sucks! Cars skid, your can't go anywhere, you slip and fall.... on the other hand, if you can stay at home, then it is really beautiful!

34 Years Old + 104 Days

Friday....

Took some photos of the snowy pier at Sruthan today but was bearly back in time to let linda go to the mother and toddler.

Finished my last day of "work" in Spideal and was actually kinda happy with it was over, so I went out and took some pictures of the snow around the Ceardlann. Some of the pics turned out nice. I learnt to that Windows does not like CR2 photos, that is the format of pictures that are taken in RAW... So to get a regular photo from RAW to show up easily on your screen you have to convert it to jpeg.

When I came home we had dinner and then cleaned cleaned cleaned, well Linda did most of the actual work in all honesty..

Thursday, December 16, 2010

34 Years Old + 103 Days

Thursday...

You know if I was driving in a car and we had to be somewhere by a certain time, and I would say to my passenger "am I going fast enough?" to get there on time. Now think about that. Going fast enough is an expression but it is built around and idea too. As in too fast you could have a serious crash or get caught by the police but too slow and you'll be one of those useless drivers that keep up a huge string of people because you are horribly inconsiderate. So there is a measure of correct driving.

Well that got me thinking, you know the way that people say that a job is "good enough" what does it mean? Because on one end of the scale there is the good enough that means you have not done enough to meet the criterion I expect for this job. Like if I said that the cake meant to be in the oven for 45 minutes, it would be good enough to take it after 44 minutes all the same, or even 46 minutes, but not 30 minutes and not half an hour. So there is a good enough.

So where am I going with this. With lots of things in my life they are good enough. But it is worth noting that we are not happy enough with "good enough" with many things, they do in fact have to be a very particular measure of the correct amount of good or bad. So with me, am I happy enough? Am I healthy enough. Do I give my kids "enough" attention? I would get pretty ticked off if my pizza was not done enough or if was too done so I would keep a keen eye on it. I find it funny that with the real things in life I do not measure how they are doing.

Its just interesting, isn't it....

34 Years Old + 102 Days

Wednesday....

Today I was at "work" again. There are various reasons I do not want to say that work is. But we had a few "customers" which was good.

Linda went to her Mother And Toddler christmas party and while that was on myself, Wallace, Dee, Mart, Marielle and PJ had a game of Settlers that Marielle won. Unsmileyface.

It was funny today actually, I have an old van that I need to get rid of, sell off, so I went onto DoneDeal.ie and I put the add up there to sell it for a few hundred euro and I think about 7 or 8 moments later I got a call about the van!!!! Go DoneDeal.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

34 Years Old + 101 Days

Tuesday... Same "work" again. Really, I do not feel life writing much about today. Linda made out Sophies birthday invitations.

34 Years Old + 100 Days

Monday 13th of December

This is my 100th day blog. I am 34 years old and 100 days today. Interesting, but apart from the fact that it is a century, there is nothing really to say about the fact that it is 100 days apart from the fact that I am happy I have kept it going for this time. While I have written in some of the days a day or two after they happened but I have come to terms with this.

Today I was "working" in Spideal. From 1pm to 6pm. When my "work" was over I legged it out top Carraroe, had a bite to eat (pasta directly from the sauspan) and then myself and Sophie headed out to karate. She was good I think as usual, all things considered - her mind wanders. After the karate myself and Linda went to dinner at a friends place. It was lovely.

34 Years Old + 99 Days

Sunday....

My Sunday was cool as usual. It is nearly offically te day that we all, well my little family of Linda and 2 kids, meet up down at mom and dads. But before we got there we called over to Ros a mhil to what would you call it, a market? but it was cool and there was a santy and but we did not go there, instead we spent a great deal of time by the raffle wheel where we quickly realised that the number 47 came up all the time. We won loads, it was a cool market.

Afterwards we had dinner of course...

When we were home and had the kids asleep Mart and Marielle and Rick came over for Settlers and when it was over Marielle left and we watched the x-factor final finals and Matt McCardle won. Will we ever hear from him again?

Sunday, December 12, 2010

34 Years Old + 98 Days

Saturday 11th

Today I sent PJ back (well asked him if he would do it and he said yes) to Spideal to be Santy so I would not have to do it, but then I got asked again to do Santy in Carraroe so that was my day until around 4pm. Afterwards we all ended up in Malis house and had food there. By the time that was over PJ needed a lift back from Spideal so I gave him the lift back to Carraroe, picking up grocerys and a Won Ton Special in the Chinese in Spideal. Won Ton is so nice, thats the big fat noodles mmmm mmmm.

By the time I was home with that and the kids were fed with said food it was bed time, and no sooner were they in bed than Mart and Rick came over for the xfactor final. Cher was kicked out, I really thought she was going to win it. Of course maybe I thought this because I was literally brainwashed by Michelle in the cafe replay infinately Turn Your Swag On 

34 Years Old + 97 Days

Friday 10th

Well today was PJs birthday, so in an unoffical kinda way we got PJ over with Rick and Mart and with Linda we all played poker and nads. In between we had a cool game of settlers. Thing is that with the Settlers game I was setting up the board, so I left out the 2, 12, and 3 numbers so people progressed up really quickly and everyone who had any kinda luck excelled really quickly. Now, Linda won, but I am not saying that it is because purely of luck, she won because she kicked ass.

Of course all that happened between 9pm and 4am at night. For the rest of the day, Sophie went to school, and there was a mother and toddler and while that was happening I was cleaning the sitting room. I realised an interesting while I was cleaning it. It being the sitting room I turned on the tv and put on, of course, Discovery Channel my favorite channel and looked at a program about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spetsnaz
It was really cool. Not just the program about Spetsnaz but the whole concept about being able to do a boring job but it being boring enough to be able to watch some cool programming on the way, makes it brilliant.

Oh yeah, heard a very special secret today.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

34 Years Old + 96 Days

My day stood out today amoungst other days. What we were saying to each other today was that nothing bad happened! Well there was some bad news from Vodafone but it could have been worse. After Sophie went to school we got ready and as soon as she was home we had tea and went into Galway. There we got a christmas tree, got some toys for Sophie and Lucy and had pizza to finish off the day because the girls were so good.

When I arrived home the Canon 550D was waiting for me!!!!! Yeeaaaa. It is beautiful, but I did not even turn it on because I wanted to read the manual.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

34 Years Old + 95 Days

Wednesday...

Man, I have just spent ages figuring out why javascript and PHP will not work all that well together. Then I got a handy little redirect javascript code that redirects a page for you. This is good because in my little browser game that I am doing, I was having a OK/Cancel button box and if you pressed cancel it meant that you did not want to log out of the game and you want to go back to the member screen, so I automatically redirect you now to the screen. I do it in 1/1000th of a second, oh yeah....

All day my muscles have felt like... crrrreeeeekkkkk. The door of our Ford Transit Van is bearly closing it is so tight becasue it simply needs 3-in-1 oil..... so I put some oil on. Wish I could pour some into my shoulders.

Spent most of the day working with Dad and Mart doing odd jobs around the place... everywhere is still frosty and really cold. But its nice.

34 Years Old + 94 Days

Lan Age Of Empires 2
What was the highlight of my day? It might well be that I had my first one-on-one LAN game with Sophie. I hope the first of millions. We played Age Of Empires II - The Conqurors. She kept on calling it Age Of Vampires.... which is phonetically correct in an incorrect kinda way.... She won, she knocked out my one war unit that I build on purpose. Shes a natural!

Linda went into town and did some food and christmas shopping and chilling the beans. Well very little relaxing from what I gather.

She did the exercise class too and found it harder than other classes she was saying. When she came back from the class we had a game of settlers - Linda, PJ, Seth and I. Seth won.... un-smiley face. But it was a brilliant game. Pity Mart and Marielle were not there.

34 Years Old + 93 Days

Monday the 6th December.

Bit of a non starter today, ever have those days where you are waiting for the day to kinda begin, where it is like, I am going to start work now, or start anything now, then it just gets late, then really, it is too late to do anything. Yeah, well that was today for me. I looked into applying for jobs but it was like, not very easy, I am kinda convinced that I could get some job, but to get a job that I like and that I deserve, that is different.

I really think I use comma's too much,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

So today I did my second karate class with Sophie, we were both on time for the class I lined up, and started it was as easy as that. I really realised how fat I am however when I was trying to do press-ups and I could feel my weight crippling my arms, I am just too heavy to be comfortable in my own skin... really. Sophie was at the class to though as I said and that was cool. She likes me being there yet... bless.

Linda offically handed over the Irish Language Conversation Group today at it's meeting. Another one of the people that come to it regularly is going to take it over. Go Wallace.

FIN

Sunday, December 5, 2010

34 Years Old + 92 Days

Sunday!!!!!

The day of rest, as I have reiterated before this, Sunday is now no longer the mecca of days of days anymore, but it is still an absolutely fantastic day. Today we left Castlebar and made our way down to Carraroe, carefully, the roads were kinda slippy, but I felt nothing of it, partially because of the roads, and you know what, partially becuase I am a good driver and I drove carefully.

I was this weekend totally impressed with the girls, they are really fantastic. I am seeing them growing up to into properly little well behaved women. I am able to ask Lucy now to do stuff for me and she has enough grasp of Irish and English that she will go and do it. I love them so much.

Why block the site unless it
 has something to hide


Ever hear of the website "Wikileaks"? It is about as politically loaded as they come. They hold stories about everything but particulairily from American soldiers who fought in the Afgan and Iraq war of late. I went to visit the site but when I tried in wikileaks.org nothing happened. I googled why nothing happened and I found out that I had to do some alterations to my host file (I did not know off hand what that was), but I was given an easier solution in the form of the actual ip address of the server itself, so that worked.... the IP address is http://213.251.145.96/ Go there and look at the site. It has become really interesting for me, you see seemingly what has happened is that it has been hit with denial of service attacks, a black hat hacker method of knocking out the domain server of a site. This was probably done by someone that does not like what wikileaks.com is doing and saying... that is providing free information to the public. This makes me believe that wikileaks is actually a good site.

34 Years Old + 91 Days

Saturday...

Opps, I slept in. I mean that opps in a "this sucks" way. You see when I sleep in past a certain hour I wake up with a headache and it takes hours and hours for it to go away. I think if I had gotten up around 10am I would be ok, I think that thats around my limit. Today I woke at 11:30, too much sleep, my headache didn't go until around 4pm.

However, I did not get up till around 3pm with that said, Linda made me breakfast in bed and I did a good bit on my browser based game Alpha07. I was working on the money and banking aspect of it today, but I have a problem that you can borrow loads of money off the game but I do not know to force the user to pay it back, if you understand. Anyway, I will get there.

So when I got up I had dinner, then showered then went into town to meet Finola who was meant to be having a 40th birthday party today but had to cancel it at the last moment due to very bad weather conditions (in Irish terms that is). So instead we had the party that was meant to happen in a pub in Newport in the sitting room of the Reillys here, albeit with alot less people. But it was brillliant craic. Vincent was there, he is a black belt in Karate, I was talking to him about karate and it was cool. But alot of people sang songs and everyone had fun and Sophie was there too at the beginning of the night so that was really cool. She was full of beans and sang her Irish song that she is learning for the school play, twice.

She is not shy at all, I am so proud of her.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

34 Years Old + 90 Days

Friday...

All that we really did today was go up to Castlebar. We stopped into galway on the way and I dropped off a monitor to Mark in town.

We drove all the way up to Castlebar and we were really careful about ice and snowey roads because the weather is really bad lately, however there was pretty much no ice bothering us at all anywhere until we got to the driveway of Lindas parents house up in Castlebar. Then the ice nearly killed me when I stepped out of the car.

When we were settled in and the kids were asleep after dinner and all was quiet we went to the cinema. It was dangerously icey there too because as the staff put it about the deadly conditions there too, "you'd think they'd put a rail there", at a place where an old couple was almost falling on their asses. Health and safety, much as I usually hate it, has its place when some silly people are in charge.

So anyway at the cinema I saw the latest Harry Potter film with Linda. It is strange seeing the kids in Harry Potter, they have grown up, Hermonie is now tall and good looking, Ron is all beefed up, and Harry, is well, he is the same, just grown up really. But the film is brilliant, really one for the Harry Potter fans as well, that have read the books, as there are loads of references to all the films in this one.

Friday, December 3, 2010

34 Years Old + 89 Days

Thursday.

Today I tried to do what should be very simple with Windows.... I tried, using the Network tab on Windows 7, to look at a folder on another Windows 7 computer. This SHOULD be very simple but it is definately not. Basically it asked for a Username and Password. Now, the method of putting in the username and password is nice and clear, and you can click a remember my credintals button and all that, and presumably once the user and pass are entered all things would be honky dorky except for the simple problem of WHAT THE HELL IS THE USERNAME AND PASSWORD IN THE FIRSTPLACE! I know that Microsoft has put so much money into the design of Windows 7 that the fact that I am left wondering about this is frankly stupid.

So I looked around the internet some for this answer and in the mean time I got the old Dreamscene working on Windows 7, the reason I specify the OS here is because Dreamscene was originally written for the now generally accepted mistake that was Windows Vista. So the Dreamscene functionality is kind of in Win 7 but you have to download a .dll file. I got the Ryan and Sarah leaving video playing as my desktop and then changed it to Shrek 4. Cool.

So today was a funny day for me in that I did not leave the house at all except to drop Sophie down to school in the morning, even then it was down and up. But it was cool, good to have a day where you stay in all day, We had visits from Sheila and the kids and Kirst! You see, why go out, when the world can come to you!

34 Years Old + 88 Days

Wednesday - 1st December - First day of Advent.

There are 5 points that I try to live by to be happy. Here they are, without much explaination and in no particular order.

1 - Exercise
A healthy body equals a healthy mind. Obviously this is just a figure of speech, but what I mean is you could possibly meet the other points to be happy but what is the good if your suckin down hamburgers and you can't reach down to your shoelaces. In todays society there is a generally accepted fitness level, and you know what it is.

2 - Friends
Funny as it sound for me to be saying this, I am sure of my other 4 points but I am not sure of this one, as in, is it that important to have friends? I believe it is, and I do not mean in a Facebook way of having 1000 friends, I mean in a way of having someone you can turn to and cry in front of or ask advise on literally anything. A friend is very same though as my relationship point, that is why I am wondering if I am forgetting an actual other really important point. Either way, if you do not have a "real friend" make it your lifes ambition to find one. A soul alone is just that.... A soul.... Alone....

3 - Job
The self worth that comes from having a job is often more important than the job itself. Like, very often. If for no other reason of course that you need a job to feed yourself and live.

4 - Relationship
This involves having sex too. So I do not mean that you have to have sex, and I do not mean that if you want to have sex that it is with an old friend, I am saying that humans are animals, animals eat, shit, screw.... A happy person will have the option of having sex if they want, that is what I am saying. Most people I know, and I am serious about this, most people I know would prefer to have the choice of being able to sleep with someone when they are going to bed at night. I do not mean sleep with someone and having sex with them, I mean, feel their presence beside them in the bed and cuddle up with them if they so choose. Having a partner, an other half, the Jerry McGuire style "you complete me" other part of you.

5 - Hobby
I see that with many older people in Carraroe and I guess everywhere, that they totally do not understand the importance of a hobby. As in, something that is yours. You might need money for it, you might not. It shouldn't really be about the money I believe, although your hobby might be going for drives in rented Verons. My hobby is making computer games. I have never made a good one, but when I am alone, when Linda and the kids are gone, and there is nothing on TV, and I have done all my chores, what do I do? My hobby, I see people like my Dad, he does not have a hobby, so what does he do when he is bored? He gets old.... Do not get old, old is not ok. Letting your mind and body grow old at the same pace is magic, is the way it is meant to be, but I know 20 year olds that have already died and float through every day life like zombies.

And so there they are, subject to change :) But if they do change it will be for the better of all man kind... yes, I am that correct in what I write! :)

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

34 Years Old + 87 Days

You know what I love, Jefferson Airplane. They have two cool songs the first is funny but also good becuase it just is, I think that Jim Carey sings it Cable Guy? That song is Somebody To Love. But the second song from them is White Rabbit, now that is a brilliant. It is used in tons of films, The Game with Michael Douglas and in Platoon just to mention a few.

You know what else I like, from a building point of view, I like underground and regular multi-story car parks. They are like airports. They represent a certain achievement of human developement. If you have a multi-story car park or a huge car park under ground like in Madrid in Spain, it shows alot of organization, wealth, and intelligence being put into a town or city. I like all the smooth, strong looking clean concrete. The very particular mood that the lights set. I love the way people behave in carparks, they aren't cool or sloppy, the are taking care of business. You know, before they put on their 'walking around casually in society' mask, the now wear a mask which is closest to their maskless self, the are more vunerable. As everyone knows, even if you do not know you know it, the time that you will see who people are the best is when they are vunerable, when they are unexpecting. I know when I park my car in a carpark, my mind is about do I have everything with me, have I locked up behind me, have I left the light on. It is like when I am leaving my bedroom or house. I am in my own space, relaxed, but still aware of the other cars and the potential that there is someone like me probably observing you, innocently.... 

34 Years Old + 86 Days

Monday....

It was a cold and frosty Morning. All I did today that was of any real relevance was to throw some sand up at Marts place to help prevent any ice from freezing his water pipes in his house. So then the next news I get about Marts house is that the water is frozen. It had frozen some time between this morning when they used it and this evening.

We were meant to have "Grupa Caidreamh" but it was cancelled becasue of the bad cold weather. So normally Monday night is Karate night for Sophie but this night I actually joined in as well. It is not karate for kids, there are just loads of kids at it. But it is brilliant, I love it and the fact that it is in Carraroe. I was at karate before in Galway and I can't even remember if I got my first grade, then again I am sure that I did because I have clear memories of the whole thing happening and of the instructor and everything. So I plan on keeping on going, the lads that are running it are implying that it is going keep on, it stops for a few weeks during Christmas but then I believe it goes on throughout summer, which would be good because usually the whole place puckers up to make way for students....

34 Years Old + 85 Days

Ouch... it was a painfull Sunday, well not really, but I will get to that later.

So today we went to the cinema we saw Megamind! See its review on IMDB.com We had some food to, like snacks and some drinks and the whole thing came to €57. That is a good bit really, cinema can be expensive.

After the cinema and when we found ourselves in Carraroe we all had some food down at Mom and Dads. When our much later than usual Sunday dinner was over we headed back home and when the kids were asleep myself, Linda, Mart, Marielle, PJ and Richard played a game of settlers. Marielle won :0

Afterward PJ showed me some tips on playing Halo better. All I need to do now is practice!

Oh yeah and the painfull part, when we were leaving the cinema I walked into the boot door as Linda was closing it and I got banged on the head.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

34 Years Old + 84 Days

When I woke this morning it was freezing cold. Really freezing, there was light snow outside but elsewhere in Ireland cars and roads had to contend with an inch and a half of snow. In November in Ireland thats alot. The girls wanted to run around outside so once they got their wellies and shoes on they got to cracking the ice on pond size pot holes out at the road. But the wind was really chilling. On circiling the house we were met with a daggering wind that ran us through once we turned a corner, or maybe that was just the way I felt, Lucy (once she had found her footing after almost being blown over) and Sophie just ran around the garden to their usual positions to play with the swings and kick the little foot ball but all with the sence of wonder of that the aftermath of a night of freezing cold can have.

After my usual Saturday morning breakfast of pancakes, smoothy made with fruit and OJ + AJ and Mythbusters the big chill metaphorically continued. I got a call from my boss to inform me that I had to be laid off after just two weeks, immediately. Thought I was going into work on Tuesday but I am not. Economic reasons I think, although I was feeling as if maybe I hadn't learn enough fast enough or something, but I guess it wasn't that. We are in a recession, it makes sence that I go now more than ever and sooner rather than later, but my few days there were great. Maybe with the grace of God, I will get back there again.

So then we took the kids down to Mart and Marielles where they played host to us and Malis kids to watching a film and playing Wii and kinda chill the beans. On my way home from that I realised my Aunt was home from America and I hadn't visited her so after out quick but delicious potatoe, peas and pork chop dinner we called down to her for a short while.

It was a weird day, there was something strange about the whole morning and then I got the call and ahhhh I don't know. In some weird way too though, it was a nice day.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

34 Years Old + 83 Days

Friday, this morning after dropping off Sophie I dropped off a little table into the mother and toddler place by the feadog. I was planing on doing some work down at mom and dads house but the day ran away from us.

The Late Late Toy show was on this night! If you are not from Ireland I wonder if you know what this is. The Late Late Show is a regular chat show, albeit on of the longest running chat shows on earth. But every christmas they have one show dedicated to showing toys!! Toy toys toys! Sophie stayed up for half of it but then crashed myself and Linda watched the rest.

34 Years Old + 82 Days

Thursday... I didn't really do anything today.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

34 Years Old + 81 Days

Ah, today is Wednesday the 24. Finished work and was out home in good enough time to my beautiful Linda and kids and a fantastic dinner. All this in a day that Europe is afraid that Ireland is going to take down the Euro currency. That is how crap our government was and is.

I predict a war.

34 Years Old + 80 Days

Tuesday.... I have only one thing to say about today, I was driving out of work this evening and it took me 50 minutes to get from the city center to Salthill. I took the wrong direction. There is a main bridge going over the Corrib that takes you to the west of the city and out to Carraroe, Mom always says to go on the bridge as the traffic always moves, shes right.

But when I did finally get home Linda was at exercise classes in Halla Einne that Cliff and Mary run. When she came home I split to do board game club in the new room beside the Feadog. The night was good I think. We played Settlers and Mart won. We are giving the board game club 3 more session for the public and then if numbers do not pick up alot were just going to make it private.

34 Years Old + 79 Days

Monday....
Got up nice and early again today, 6am. The whole world is a different place at 6 in the morning. Not even the birds are awake, well not around my neck of the woods anyway. So I went to work. On my way in I listened to Iron Maiden. I really think they are brilliant, but then again I am listening to a best of (speaking of which, I should give it back some day/week/year to the owner)

34 Years Old + 78 Days

You know, I did sleep in loads today. I slept in till 12. There was a science fair thing happening in Galway and I meant to go to it but by the time that we had dinner over and everyone would have been settled down I figured that it was best to just stay put. So instead of going anywhere, Linda worked on a website she is doing, and Sophie looked at a Monster Vs Aliens halloween special and myself and Lucy puttered around the house. When the kids were asleep and Linda was still working away diligently on her site I went to Marts place for an hour and played some Mario game on the Wii. It was good craic but all the time it was on my mind that I had to get up early the next morning, hence my 1 hour.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

34 Years Old + 77 Days

Saturday....

The day was cool overall. In the morning I went down to mom and dads with the kids and we talked about cleaning up the place a bit. Then we came home and had some brekkie with some small fat little pan cakes that I call Flap-jacks. Linda says that they are not called flap-jacks but I think I am right here.

Then myself and Mart when down to Dads again and chopped some wood. It is a task that dad usually did but the both of us did in half and hour what dad would do in nearly 2 hours. Really we should be doing it all the time, really.

Linda picked me up from there and we all, as in with the kids, went into town to a christmas market in Eyre Square. It is cool, Sophie went to a very early Santy, and then onto a merry go round, that she shared with Lucy. It is all very nice there, it takes up the whole square. We had heard that it is massively expensive but in reality it isn't too bad.

Then it was out to Finbar and Louise and their little baby Beatrix. We had pizza there too. Mmmmm.....

We finished off the night by asking dad to babysit at 11pm while myself and Linda went down to Mart and Marielles to play guitar hero on the 360. I played the drums on medium and didn't suck... oh wait, drums on Easy, but bass guitar on medium and didn't suck... oh yeah....

Friday, November 19, 2010

34 Years Old + 76 Days

Friday... Friday the 19th of November even....

Sitting down in front of the fire here, in the sitting room. It was a good day. There was a mother and toddler meet in Carraroe next door to the Feadog, it is in the same building as the Feadog, It is a nice place and it is in Carraroe which is central and all the rest.

Then I went down to Mom and Dads and cleaned out one of the sheads with them. We did a really good job I have to say.

All the day was good and relaxing.

34 Years Old + 75 Days

I am writing this on Friday. Friday night that is. So alot of what happened on Thursday is not all that clear. I was working again today actually. So, after work I didn't really do much. I was home relatively early actually and Linda went to exercise class. I played some force unleashed, which was cool.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

34 Years Old + 74 Days

Wednesday...

By the time I came home it was really kinda late in the evening. The kids were just going to bed. Fantastic Linda had dinner waiting for me. Fantastic Linda had the house cleaned and hovered. Fantastic Linda had even.. and this is a really fantastic thing. caught the mouse. Well, or a mouse... She got one, and like a ture humanitarian she let the mouse go with a stiff finger wagging.

There are so many reasons I love her, and the about are some of them.

There are so many reasons I hate vermen though... but I am not going to go into them, it would be a waste of time. Spending time on stuff I hate, illogical. I did get 4 mouse traps though. They wanna territorial fight... I'll give them a fight. Little punks...

Then I wrote this....

34 Years Old + 73 Days

Tuesday.... 3 big things happened today...

First is Prince Harry is it? He got engaged to... hmm I forget her name... Kate something... that is actually a big thing. Alot of people say it is not, but it is. What made this whole thing about the prince more interesting however, is that before going to bed, Sophie was on the chair looking at Sky 1 on TV. There was a program on about Prince (Harry ?) was in Africa talking about projects that he was suppoerting, when Sophie said "he looks just like Ryan". On a second glance and he is!

Second big thing that happened is that I ordered my camera!!!!!! Yippee.... This is a picture of it. It is a Canon 550d.... I am really looking forward to it. It is nice to look forward to something coming in the mail. They, Amazon.co.uk, said that delivery could take around 10 days... so I am going to put that down to working days, and even then be surprised if it comes around that time. It is going to be brilliant.

Third thing is not so big, but still a surprise... we found a mouse!!!!! In our bedroom!!!! Little pervert probably sat patiently under the bed untill I got undressed. Because of its illicit nature I plan to get loads of mouse traps tomorrow.

So, work first part of the day... medium mood  : I
Camera ordered second part of day... excellent mood. 8)
Mouse = Bad Mood :(

Monday, November 15, 2010

34 Years Old + 72 Days

Monday - 15th November.

I did my first day of work in over 4 years today... Like, the first day that I have worked for someone else that is. Enough said.

So my day was good basically. We had a nice dinner, shepards pie...mmmmm

There was an interesting thing on tv about "Dr. Death" or Aribert Ferdinand Heim . He is a Nazi Doctor during world war 2. He worked in a concentration camp. There he would literally chop up people basically ro see what would happen. He would inject them with poisions to see how long it would take them to die. Sometime he would "operate" on seven people a day. Click here to read up more on him on wikipedia.


"I am your ass kicker, father..."
 Then I did some housework and played some Force Unleashed. I have only gained 55 gamer points so far. On the level I am playing I have gotten lost and somewhere I took a wrong turn, it is a cool game when it is so big that that can happen.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

34 Years Old + 71 Days

Sunday the 14th of November... I learnt today that when you are writing an official document that you should not write the 'of' that I put in the 'of November' there.

Saw Sheila and Nadia and Amina today. Good to see them as they remind my about some of the best things that happened with the cafe.

After dinner down at Dad and Moms place I went back to the house and played Star Wars Force Unleashed (1) on the 360. Thing is I played some of it one Friday too and I thought that the quality of my TV was not all that good really, the quality reminded me more of a good first xbox game... but where was the brilliant quality that I thought I would have had. Well yesterday we were having that quality problem and eventually we clicked that we should have been using a HDMI cable instead of the SCART quality cable we were using. My god the difference was amazing. And today playing Force Unleashed, it was something else. The game is beautiful to look at...

Speaking of which, Linda and the kids came home around 6pm and we had pancakes and relaxed a bit for the rest of the night. All was good....

Tomorrow, I offically begin my new job...

34 Years Old + 70 Days

Saturday....

I woke up at 2:30pm!!!! It was way to late for me becuase I have this really unfortunate anti laziness thing that if I sleep in, when I wake up I have a headache...

So I had a headache, and to feel better I drove down to Carraroe and got some panadol and picked up PJ. When we got back to my house I felt really really crap. PJ played on the xbox 360 for a few moments but then I left to have a shower, and I vomited my guts up. The second I had finished hurling I felt like a new man. Seriously... I would advise it to anyone (not).

Then Mart came home from Galway where he was with Mom buying an iphone 4 for her. So she has an Apple iphone now, something else. I am jealous.

But eventually a bunch of us finally got together in Mart and Marielles place and we played loads of wii, loads of xbox 360, and ate loads of pizza that we made ourselves from scratch. It was a brilliant night but rick was not feeling well and there might have been too many people because we just didn't have enough doubles of 360 games. Like we needed a copy of each game to be able to play across the networked xboxs. But Mart tv screen was SOOO big that even when we had a 4 player going on the screen that each quarter of the screen was literally as big as the tv that I brought down that I thought was big.

Basically it turned out to be a good night I think... we will do it again, but we learnt alot from this night so the next time will be alot better.

34 Years Old + 69 Days

Friday...

Friday was cool. I dropped off Sophie to school and then my weekend holiday began after that. Linda went up home with the kids when Soph was ready with school and I chilled the beans at home more or less for the rest of the day. I was meant to meet up with PJ and play games all day at my house but we cancelled that plan because we were all going to meet up tomorrow in Marts place. Later on in the evening, well night, Mart and Tara and Rick came over and we play Settlers... Tara played it for the first time and won! Beginners luck... hmmm... more like don't get on the wrong side of her. She kicked ass alright....

Friday, November 12, 2010

34 Years Old + 68 Days

Thursday. It was really windy today. Really windy. The kind of wind that could carry you out the door of your car if you were weak and feble and didn't know what you were doing.

Sophies teacher had a meeting with us today about Sophie, she said she is nice and her writing is good etc, we were and are proud parents...

Saw "The Social Network" or 'The Facebook Film'. It was brilliant. Mart babysat for us. It was a good night.

34 Years Old + 67 Days

Wednesday...

I didn't really do a whole lot today.... there is not much to write about therefore. It was a strange day, like yesterday... I am just getting used to people talking to me in the shop about cupantae.ie closing.

34 Years Old + 66 Days

Tuesday.... 9th of November 2010

I was offered a job.... hmmm, 2 days a week.... "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent" as my favorite philosopher Wittgenstein once wrote...

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

34 Years Old + 65 Days

I did a tiny bit of work down around the cafe this Monday... but not much.... I burnt paper at a secret location that I cannot mention (because if I do mention it the GOVERNMENT will come down on me like a ton of bricks. It is ok to screw the whole country of literally billions and billions and make old people that are dying wait on trolleys in packed over worked and under staffed hospitals, but ohhhhhh will I be in trouble if the government find out I burnt some paper!!!! PS - I hate the goverment and the state of the country more than anything else in the world at the moment).

Sophie did karate again, I thought she might have stopped after her no-show-due-to-illness last week. But I took her and she was good. I talked to some of the other lads there and maybe a few of us might join up too. Some of the fathers that are just standing around basically waiting for our kids to finish.

The Groupa Caidreamh was on again today after a break of a few weeks. The break was primarly due to the lack of a venue. So we had it in Tigh Táilliúra. There were 6 of us there in total.

Came home and did some computer stuff...

34 Years Old + 64 Days

Sunday... 7th Nov...

It was really windy today. We were getting the tail end of a hurricane or something. It wasn't batton down the hatchs Wizard Of Oz style but still enough to move ones toupé uncomfortably around on ones head if in front of respectable company.

So we didn't really go anywhere.

We went to Mom and Dads for dinner and that was really nice. Last night I made a decision not to eat crap for around a month. I was really eating everytime I saw something tasty or anytime that I was bored. But yesterday I just ate so much sweet crap in such a short time I was like, no more.... no more....

With that said I made pancakes for brekkie and had the remainder of the pancakes for supper!

Thats all really, just 4 of us chilling the beans.... after all.... cupantae is closed.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

34 Years Old + 63 Days

Saturday 11th November...

In Ireland November is often called Movember, because it is the month that it is socially acceptable for men to grow beards and mustashes and be all hairy and raise money for charity.

I have not done that. What I have done however is close up the cafe for the last time today. The last time. It felt good. All my emotions and feelings are geared up to it and when it closed it felt right. I had tea in the house with some of the cafe staff (Nadia etc) and it was nice. It was like if nothing else I have made so many nice friends from the cafe. I was happy.

After the cafe was closed and after our friends left we went to another friends house for dinner. The kids played with their kids and all was good. Andrea makes lovely food and its not everyday kinda food. It was pasta and broccolli.

After all that we went up Mart and Marielles and looked at a film. Loads happened today. It will be a date that I will forget easily but events that will be remembered forever.

34 Years Old + 62 Days

Friday....

Hmm, another day consumed by the wilting beast, the forlorn lover that is the cafe... can't even remember what I did...

Friday, November 5, 2010

34 Years Old + 61 Days

Thursday....

Did alot of cleaning up in the cafe today. Took tons of computer components like cables, mice, keyboards etc down to mom and dads house. We seemed to be doing it all day, but with that said I was home well before 6pm and I even read for a while (the reason I have not read before this being my fault totally I fully acknowlegde). I am reading a book called "The Hackers Handbook 3.0". It is brilliant, but it does advise that if you are to become a hacker not to advertise it, well I am not advertising it, I assure you that I not going to become a hacker. To be a read hacker (and not a lowly "script-kiddy") would take more work that I am willing to put into the whole thing. Although it is worth noting that if you have had a program, or a piece of technology that you managed to change and modify in some way, for better or worse, but still had the program or tech still working at the end, you could be called a hacker too.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

34 Years Old + 60 Days

Wednesday.... 3rd November 2010...

We were in Galway again, this time talking to the bank. The bank was talking to us as well about winding up our business so we had to talk to them for a while, again, it wasn't too bad. There is always a fear that the bank, or the tax, or someone is going to explode up in our face and try to kill us, so to speak. But it all seems to be ok. It is said that when you simply face the problems head on they turn out to not be so bad at all.

Met up with Mark a friend in Supermacs. Yum, we got a huge pizza, some wedges and chicken dippers and a 1.5 litre coke all for €20... oh yeah. I bought a book called Hackers... it talks about all the old school hackers and how they hacked and what have you. I am lokoing forward to delving into it.

When I got home I picked up my illegal VW Caddy, I had lost the keys. They were in a pocket of my new combats! Also, got some turf today... I am now going to put down a fire...

34 Years Old + 59 Days

Tuesday.... Today we spoke to the accountants about winding up the business and all that had to do with it and it wasn't too bad... That was all, I was in Galway with Linda so that was cool.... Oh yeah, I was at the dentist too. To my mega surprise he said that I only had one small cavity and that otherwise my teeth were "not too bad!".

Thank you god for the electric tooth brush.... (early electric toothbrush was produced in Switzerland in 1939 - Innovator Philippe-G. Woog invented the electric toothbrush in 1954 for E.R. Squibb and Sons - Consumers did not take to the electric toothbrush very well until General Electric introduced a cordless rechargeable model in 1961, perhaps because they didn't feel comfortable using a toothbrush attached to an electrical outlet. After the rechargeable model went on the market, sales increased significantly)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

34 Years Old + 58 Days


Fedora logo

Monday.... 2nd Nov

Today we made alot of headway in the cafe, cleaning it up that is. We have organised most of the computer room and the kitchen... soon it will all be empty of our personal belongings. Enough about that...

Today I moved my Fedora (Linux) iso onto a cd and I am going to attempt to get Fedora working on a Dell D610. I am really looking forward to it.

Also today we were working on a website and we got a really cool Flash .swf that we bought online working on the site. It looks good. Go here to see it http://www.cupantae.ie/envirouisce/

***EDIT - Bloody Fedora, it doen't work. It clearly says that there is something wrong with the disk, but which disk? Is it the Fedora ISO CD ROM I burnt off the net or it is the hard disk drive of the Dell?***

Monday, November 1, 2010

34 Years Old + 57 Days

Sunday... 31st October - Halloween

I am writing this blog entry on my Ubuntu (Linux) box. It is cool. I wonder what will work and what will not work from the point of view of programs on it. Just because a program works on Windows does not mean it will run on Linux. I love Ubuntu basically.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

34 Years Old + 56 Days

Oct 30th... and the christmas lights are up on Abbey Gate
Street Lower (or is it Upper?)

Saturday....

Its a new dawn, its a new day... and I'm feeling good!!!!

I went into Galway this morning and it was one of the first mornings in something like 3 and a half to four years that I did not need to get something for cupantae.... I think I went in primarily because I could.

Of course when I was there I bought combats to the value of €35 in the Army Navy Store so I can look like  Locke on Lost... he is going to be my monster for the monster theme at Marielles party tonight. So I got the trouser and headed out to Carraroe again.

There we opened up the cafe for the LAST TIME EVER to the public. Business was very very quiet until I wanted it to be quiet so I could head out the door at 6pm and then things livened up and people started arriving to say good bye and what have you. So when the staff and the family were there together sitting down at the table we acknowledged that the cafe was closing and we opened a bottle of champagne and it was had... and then we went home. And just like that cupantae.ie was closed....

34 Years Old + 55 Days

Friday....

Had a long day in the cafe... it was long and tedious because I was just waiting and waiting for tomorrow. It was throbbing and beating in my head all day... boom boom boom... tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow... Finally work finished at 9ish, later than I would have liked considering and I was home in a flash.

Looked at the second episode of the series The Event... I am liking it....

34 Years Old + 54 Days

Thursday....

Worked in the cafe and then played games for a while... really not much more to say....

Friday, October 29, 2010

34 Years Old + 53 Days

Wednesday....

After a tough day yesterday I just floated through the day. I played some Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 with the girls in the cafe.. it was a welcome break from reality!

34 Years Old + 52 Days

Tuesday.....

"....Suzanne stepped outside of her tent. In her hand she held a bloody knife. The same blood was spattered all over her body. He never knew what had happened to him. Well maybe for a moment. But then in the moment he was awoken all he felt was a rush of adrenaline as his body tried fiercely to compensate for the shock of torn skin, muscle and veins.

Suzanne never blinked.

It was over in a moment and when it was his body was dragged out near a small oasis that they had camped beside. She figured that the spiders and snakes and large birds would devour him with the day. This was the desert after all and all animals are hungry... she walked up to her 4x4. She turned the key. The engine began to turn then nothing. She inspected the plugs, oil, water everything. But nothing worked... Resiliently she began walking.

She walked until the sun set and all through the freezing night and all through the next day trying her best to survive remembering all her survival training like only breathing through her nose and wrapping her shirt she had urinated in around her forehead to preserve as much moisture as possible.

Weak and tired on the third day she spied a tree in the distance. She ran towards it, using up all her reserve of energy. The closer she got to the tree the happier she was getting as she was making out bushes and a small pool of water shaded in the center of the trees. Then her heart leapt, how fortunate was this. She could make out a 4x4. A Jeep, grey.... with.... a tent beside it. She stopped running and walked with a broken hearted march to her dead husband again. She tried to make it to the pool of water but some animal had dragged the now mutilated corpse into its center. There was a buzz of flies so loud it made her skin crawl.

Seeking some normality, she reached for her mirror. She stared at the reflection. She could see a beautiful woman looking back. Behind her reflection in the mirror was a table laden with food. A servant was laying the table with silverware. Her family was ready for the meal and were waving at her to join them....

Two days later native came across the scene. On inspection he found the fault in the engine, a wire in the ignition switch was purposefully removed and beside this wire, under the seat was a small box with an engagement ring inside. The Jeep was now partially covered in sand blown from the tips of the dunes. The stocky well clothed man left with his cattle on his journey..."

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

34 Years Old + 51 Days

Sometimes, when I find myself feeling extreme stress, I suddenly remember a smell. It is a pleasant, lovely, homely smell of my bed when I was younger when the sheets are freshly changed. I can remember myself jumping in the bed, into brown bed sheets I think they were, and feeling the instant warmth and snugness that came with a newly made bed. It is like the way that you'd remember the smell of homemade bread. A smell that activates a memory. But as I said, it is a level of stress that activates the smell for me, and then the memory, of, corny as it sounds a "more innocent time". A self defence mechanism kicks in and carries me away.

Today was a tough day. All to do with wrapping up the business. Stuff that I expected would be easy is alot harder. Like Wolverine when hes trapped, the claws have come out. I had planned to do some other work too today but I find myself trapped in a moment and thinking about the same things over and over again and the only way I can escape them is by playing a computer game or something like it, that is designed to let you escape from the real world.

But the game must finish, so when it does, I head to bed. Again that memory, the smell. Maybe when I close my eyes I will be ten again, in my warm snug bed...

Monday, October 25, 2010

34 Years Old + 50 Days

No pic. Sunday, usually my day of leisure, today was not all that stressfull in any way or anything but I still found myself not all that happy and pretty snappy at those closest to me. I am like that alot of Sundays actually. But today was Marielles birthday... she is X years old. So we sang happy birthday for her, but in hindsight it could have been more of an occasion actually... like, now that I think about it.

But today I began get Blackberry App World working on my Blackberry. It is not really working, I have so far only downloaded to App that gives me (theoritically at least) access to apps. Problem is that the App window itself does not work.... ahhhh.... Blackberry! I have cursed them before and I and many people will curse them again, why does your software not work the way one would think it works!

34 Years Old + 49 Days


Plants Vs Zombies.... *brains!*

Oh yeah, Saturday... We walked into the sitting room to find this picture that Sophie had drawn. Personally we think it is brilliant. If you know the game "Plants Vs Zombies" by Popcap Games then you have to admit that this picture is absolutely brilliant.

What else, we finished work (whos we?) and then played some Tom Claney Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 and it was brilliant. Then home, fed the kids and Linda, I made this lovely omlette. Yum, it was delicious. Then basically the next big thing after that was going to a friends 21st birthday (Decco). Whilst not the most packed I ever saw the function room which held said party it was still good fun.



34 Years Old + 48 Days

Scary Ghost

So Friday.. the school that Sophie goes to did this thing that the kids from her class walked a bit to school. Now while the distance that they had to walk was miniscule(? spelling) the point was made that it is in fact possible to walk to school more often. Also today was their fancy dress day, so the amount that they walked was done so in a costume... it was all very scary!!!!

3 and 9... what does it all mean?
In other cool stuff about today, I parked my car, and just as i was getting out I noticed the mileometer, or whatever its called, like the thing that measures how far I have driven. You can reset the bottom mile but not the top, and look how they randomly alligned! 39193 and the bottom 393... wow.. and they were both palindromes to top of the wonder of it all.
So today was a good day in a way. I told the people that should be told that the cafe is closing down at the end of October. Thats that. The end of a strange, brilliant, and stressfull 3 years.... actually, all the 3's are now beginning to make since to me...

Friday, October 22, 2010

34 Years Old + 47 Days

Thursday....

So I am 47 days into my "blog every day of my 34th year" experiment. 47 is of course a significant number because it is the Star Trek number. In ST:The Next Generation if they needed a number they would usually use the number 47. For example how many people died on Scorpion 8 - 47! How far away from Earth are we... 4.7 light years... etc etc. So what are my musings about the blog at this stage. It is difficult to keep it good and relevant. For example I know I could make it brilliant by telling litterally everything that I am feeling and everything that is happening to my family and all that. But I don't think I want to involve my family too much in the blog because of privacy etc. But then that is an instant barrier to how I think and what I want to write. I'll see, I will be taking the blog a new direction in a few weeks anyway when I finally recieve my new digital camera that I am going to get. When that arrives I will have more beautful pics...

So thats it for now, I'll go, I am still working on my little online browser based game. I have to work in alot more dynamics to make it exciting and to make people want to play it. At the moment the only people that would play it, in as much as it can be played, are people that I would actually ask directly, but then there is nothing in the game that would make you go, wow this is brilliant I am going to ask my friends to play this so i can share the fun.

Not yet that is, I am working on it. Oh yeah, and I was thinking more about really setting up a computer club. I think that I will be going ahead with that. I will have to confirm, I have the PC's, the skill, and soon the time, however, ironically, not (soon anyway) the space!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

34 Years Old + 46 Days

Wow, cupantae. She had a tough day today. Her first biggest day was the day she opened. Her second biggest day was today.

I can not and do not want to say anything else... :(

34 Years Old + 45 Days

The whole day was kinda crap in that work was slow, but in the evening after work we had a seven person game of Settlers of Catan! Yeah baby.... seven, 7, SEVEN. I guess that its not that big of a deal really. I used coins and pieces from a monopoly board to make up my pieces and for those in the know about the flip chart, I just wrote in what my advances were on a piece of paper. I was cool.

Wallace won....

34 Years Old + 44 Days

Mmmehhh!

Monday... whats it all about. This monday lark.... "oh look at me I'm the first day of the week!". Monday is annoying like.... I don't know what. This Monday we were going to have an Irish Language Class but it was not happening, so I was thinking that our Monday would be nice and quiet.

But not so!!!

Dad a an ashma attack that resulted in him going into hospital, but then coming out a few hours later. So whilst it was very serious, note the hospital and all, it was also not too bad in that he came out the same day. He went in in the morning and was out at around 6pm I think.... a good days work.

So I visited him in the evening, more like night time, and we talked for a bit. He shouldn't smoke.  

Monday, October 18, 2010

34 Years Old + 43 Days

Today was a good full day. It was SUNDAY!!!!!!!

So we had some brekkie in the morning and then went to mass. Lucy was making loads of noise so we had to take her out, but it was nice to be back in the church, we were talking to the priest afterwards and I told him that friends of ours, Ryan and Sarah, made me want to go back to church again... "get closer to Jesus".

We had dinner at mom and dads as usual too but then went up to Mart and Marielles and watched "How to train your dragon". It was good and the kids liked it.

Pretty much after that we came back to my place and wished Ryan a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! It was really cool actually because we had a camera and mic and talked to Sarah and Ryan for a while over skype. Good old skype, it reminds me of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey... when it was said that in 2001 all international calls would cost the same as a local call... again, Clarke was on the button. 

All that was topped of nicely with a game of Settlers won in fine style by the beautiful Linda, and I am not just saying that because she is reading over my shoulder....

Sunday, October 17, 2010

34 Years Old + 42 Days


Brownies!

Saturday... lately I have to add the days of the week onto these posts, just so I know what is happening myself. Basically, everyday is a blur, everyday going seemlessly into the next. I can't really tell what is happening because I am waiting for a few big decisions to happening and as much as I want them to happen straight away I cannot make it happen.  So, I will wait....

In the mean time, these are two pictures from the kitchen...



Sun coming through woods....


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

34 Years Old + 39 Days

The reason I have this up is to show you the ass kicking internet speed we finally have. Look, a 22.5MB file loaded in 31 seconds. 745KB/Sec.
I know that alot of people have a much much faster connection and would laugh at this but it is not about them, it is about me, and how impressed I am with this speed, which incidentally was at 1.2MB/Sec download when I was downloading from steam the other day.

34 Years Old + 38 Days

Tuesday was work all day until 8:30pm and then after a quick visit to my parents home, where I looked at Desperate Housewives and then fell asleep on the couch and then woke up and went to bed! Three interesting things about today were all the same that I was in bed before 12 midnight! Second thing is that I was up until 5:30 the morning of today figuring out PHP stuff which I did figure out.... now, what was the third thing? Maybe I should have an early night again tonight...

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

34 Years Old + 37 Days

Spot the real baby
Monday morning was made brighter by the site of Lucy coming in with a big bunch of dolls, her "babys". Not to be seen too early in the morning when bleary eyed and still half away or it could be mistaken for the quadro-headed monster you had just ran from in a nitemare.

Otherwise the day was strange somehow, Sophie has gone to another karate class therefore re-enforcing into her mind the fact that she is actually offically tending the class now rather than just going to it and seeing what it is like.

We did get bad new also. Some relating to the cafe... but again, not here. Or at least not right now...

34 Years Old + 36 Days

The scene of the crime!
Sunday... chill out day :)

That is until disaster struck! :(

We took Sophie out cycling today and she accidentally cycled off the road. Maybe we will read over this some day and laugh but when it happened it was all pretty serious.

This is where it happened, down from mom and dads house in a place called Pointe. She was ok after a while of some nursing and a bandage.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

34 Years Old + 35 Days

Zooey Deschanel
I was just at the cinema, we saw "The Other Guys". Will Ferrell and Mark Walaberg I think it is that is in it. Will Ferrell is brilliant. He was in Elf, that is one of the first places that I saw him and thought that he was really funny. That is also the first place that my number 1 laminated list babe Zooey Deschanel came from. But enough about her, apart from the fact that I am going to put her picture up....

Saturday, October 9, 2010

34 Years Old + 34 Days

Friday....

For some reason, alot of reasons actually, Friday is not good for me... I am working pretty much the whole day and I am really really tired when I get home. So much so that I am afraid not much good is done on this day bar working....

The only upshot of today was that I had a cool little break through in the game I am making, the online game that is, in that I can upload data to the database from the website... woopie... seriously.

Friday, October 8, 2010

34 Years Old + 33 Days

Toilet... the unspoken hero in the home.
Were you ever really sick and felt you had to throw up and so you made your way to the bathroom. I have... and I was feeling bad, really bad. All my body was weak and I felt as if I have no energy at all. Then I felt the vomit coming... so I collapsed onto my knees and leaned over the toilet bowl.

And there it was. More comforting that the embrace of a loved one. The cold and strangely reassuring feeling of the porcaline bowl in all its unhygenicness pressing agains't my face....

I woke up with my head dangling into the bowl a while later. Looked at the toilet... patted it and said thanks. How many special moments have we had together?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

34 Years Old + 32 Days

I have realise that it is actually very easy to update this blog every single day when there is no picture to be put up. Now the thing is that when a picture is there it makes the whole blog of the day alot more interesting. Otherwise this entry is just words, words, words....

Anyway, today I finally, 100% with help from a person off YouTube with a channel called phpacademy, got closer to having a working version of a browser based game I am doing. phpacademy is brillliant. The person in it speaks clear english and his accent is easy listening. He is clear and slow enough in what he does, he explains everything in detail. I know that theoritically I should read up how to do everything, but this is so much easier.

So, I have gotten a registration screen, login screen, members screen, and logout screen working!!!! All this will be incorporated into my browser based game, Alpha07 that I already did a bit of work on but then I got stuck with all these problems. Every single one being addressed and fixed by the guy in phpacademy!

I will try to get more pictures up btw...

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

34 Years Old + 31 Days

Tuesday 5th October 2010...

Sometimes it is so clear to me how one thing ending is the beginning of another thing. I read once that the higher the mountain the lower the valley for height and depth are the same. In this way I see that, as simple as the concept is... that I have a van, and if I get rid of it, it is the beginning of me not having the van. Now the example with the van means nothing, but with personal loss I find myself thinking that in the same way, if I loose something valuable to me, I do not miss the actual object or thing I have lost, but I miss the concept... it is my relationship with the concept that I value... but that relationship is the most important thing in your life, for your relationship with these concepts are what make up your reality... your life.

34 Years Old + 30 Days

Sophie was at Karate today. I really want her to like it, but I do not know if she is diggin it too much. Lucy was observing too and she even started coping the push up and a few of the moves. I'll see if Sophie likes it and see if we can force her to do the next seven weeks....

Monday, October 4, 2010

34 Years Old + 29 Days

Today, 3rd October. Well at around midday Linda and Mal went into Galway to be models in a fashion show that Galway charity Cope was putting on. Whilst they were gone, bearing in mind that Lindas parents were down for a few days myself and Sophie went down to another birthday party.

We did not have a present for the kid so sophie suggested that we give €6 because he was six years old, worked for me! Then after the party Sophie wanted to blow up a kids inflatable paddling pool, in the house, worked for me!

Paddling pool, ideal for living in!


Girls at the kids party.
 We blew it up and she then choose to live in it. Then I headed off to Galway to see Linda and Mal in the fashion show. Linda and Mali were brilliant, they seemed to make the whole thing look effortless even though i know that they were a little nervous before hand. I do not have pics of them on my blackberry, which is by the way how I update nearly all of my pics. But I will have one of the fashion show tomorrow and insert it into the day.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

34 Years Old + 28 Days

Wow, today we had an absolutely fantastic dinner at Marielles place.

34 Years Old + 27 Days

Well, I am not actually writing this on the actual day of the 27 Day of my 34th year... I am writing this on the 28th day.. in other words the 2nd of October. Today was kinda boring from a doing stuff kinda day. Working in cupantae all day. I got bad news about a job that I was hoping in all honesty to get. So that was a bummer. But at least I played some Minecraft.

Friday, October 1, 2010

34 Years Old + 26 Days

On the very top of my house, notice the turrets, classy!

Ever heard of the game Minecraft... no? Well your lucky, it is now 3am and I have been playing the free java version of Minecraft for the last 2 hours!!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH! It is brilliant. But my muscles ache, I am tired... but I built a house! Look at the 3 screen shots of house that I took.

The way the game works is right click on the mouse builds the object you have selected, right click destroys. With the full game you can build various things, like hammers, axes etc. Look at some Minecraft vids on Youtube. Play the game... it is worth it.

Strange 3D perspective of what is really the most
beautiful house ever. Eat your heart out F.L. Wright.



Inside on the first floor, see the elegant staircase.
I wish I was asleep now :( but also :)

Thursday, September 30, 2010

34 Years Old + 25 Days


Last Movie Night :( I think not!!!!!!
 29 Sept 2010

So today could have been a sad day were it not that I do not believe him. Mart said that today was the last movie night. Because it was the last movie night it fell naturally oddly enough that the last film we should watch was Sneakers... Now, in my memory, Sneakers was really brilliant! Full of high tech computer talk, they would show code, talk about hacking... be all really cool and stuff. Instead, they never actually referred to themselves as hackers. They were of course, but that in a way was not really what the film was about, there was alot of "social engineering" going and that was cool. So anyway, that explains the film. It was obviously made by universal. Oh yeah, a quick one. I have actually gotten a bit into making my own, or at least starting a testing model of it, my own PHP browser based game!!!!  Nite

34 Years Old + 24 Days

28 Sept 10

Today I had a really cool day because I did not have to go into work at all because I was looking after the kids. Why was I looking after the kids? Well Linda was in Galway getting a makeover (is that the correct term?). When she came out of Galway she had this beautiful new hair. My sister too had a new hair do and it looks fabulous too :) There is going to be a fashion show on next Sunday raising money for charity, Cope. They are going to be models on a cat walk! So I had a good day and so did all of the girls, so that is good all around!

The Reality Of The News

There have been a few times where I have clicked on a news article only to realise that I have been hit with a paywall. I don't mean thi...