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Wednesday, 7th May, 2008

Dinner with Stephen this evening. It was great to catch up - it's been far too long. He's only back in the country for another couple of days, too, before he heads off to Bangalore again.

I know that Intec's offering decent incentives for him to go but after hearing his stories I still don't think I could subject myself to the discomfort of doing the same sort of thing. If I ended up somewhere where I had to shave and clean my teeth with bottled water - and was afraid to shower - I think I'd be on the next flight out.

Still, I'm impressed that he's doing it, and hope that it all goes well. Some of the stories, though...

In other news, there's now a salsa class that runs once every month just outside Zanetti's. I don't know if I'll become a regular, but since it's also on the pizza/pasta night, it might be worth a look...

Well, I guess there are some good things that come of working on a public holiday. At least I can spare myself five minutes to write a blog post

For one, I've actually managed to get some work done without being interrupted, which has led me to a depressing realisation: I can do more in two hours without being interrupted than I can during a whole normal business day. Bugger :p

The weekend (apart from today) was actually pretty good; breakfast on Saturday morning, and a ride and a BBQ (happy 30th, David!) on Sunday.

Syndia picked up some foam rubber for her briefcase (exam toolkit), and we picked up a few remaining items that she needed (ophthalmoscope, new stethoscope etc) and she spent an hour happily cutting shapes out of the foam to make them all fit. Of course, after she'd finished, she wanted to practise her examination skills, which mean that I got to be poked, prodded and stuck with pins (literally!) once again. Fadge dropped around on Sunday evening, too, which was great - Syndia's eyes lit up at the prospect of another victim, and she promptly started sticking pins into him as well.

In other news, I've been experimenting recently with different ways to publish photos, since I'm sick of having so many stashes of them around the place, so many backups, and so many different ways of tagging people in them. I've tried Flickr; I've tried Picasa; I've tried Facebook and I've even written my own RSS feed generator for uglybugger.org (which fails only because there are too many photos and most feed readers barf).

I'm thinking of settling on Picasa, primarily because it has a really nice Facebook uploading application. What does everyone else do? Anyone?

I'm listening to Phantom. Again. Pity I couldn't find an Anthony Warlow version of it, but hey... one can't have everything.

I'm also rather enjoying having a semi-working blog again, too, hence the moderately-inane entries that are probably going to appear over the next couple of weeks. Sorry.

I'm experimenting with importing my blog via RSS into Facebook's Notes section.

If anyone reads this, please let me know if you think it's worth-while

Awesome weekend.

Six of us (Kim, Khanh, Maddy, Alison, Syndia & I) headed to Heron Island. We spent pretty much the entire time walking along the beach, swimming, snorkelling, exploring the island and generally having a relaxing, almost decadent time of it.

It's a tough life, sometimes...

I love the smell of old leathers on a crisp, clear morning.

It makes me think of the Yarra Ranges, the Great Ocean Road, bakeries, cafés and the company of friends.

That's all.

Yes, I know this site hasn't been updated for a while. Quite a while, in fact.

I've been more than a little busy. There'll be updates coming as soon as I have time and a usable server.

I spent today mostly walking around Dun Laoghaire and Sandycove. Breakfast at Cafe Moka was followed by a walk to the 40-foot (a supposedly-famous swimming area just off Sandycove) and then lunch, coffee and reading a book in the People's Park back in Dun Laoghaire.

The 40-foot was a bit disappointing, I have to admit. I wasn't expecting much in the way of surf or sand given that it's Ireland, after all, but I didn't expect to see people huddling around a piece of ocean, standing on rocks and shouting at each other about how cold the water was and how much fun they were having. Strange.

Syndia's still in Germany, and won't be back until Tuesday. Her parents flew out this morning so she's on her own, and presumably going to do some additional exploring before she leaves. Photos and stories etc when she gets back.

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