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.

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...