Year of Giving

 Goings On  1 Response »
Mar 082010
 

While this site may not be my main outlet for ranting and rambling or even status updates at this point, it used to have a semi-decent page rank, so I’ll use it to let people know about a worthy cause/quest undertaken by a friend of mine, Reed.  Reed lives in Washington DC and after becoming unemployed for the first time in his life (something I will have to deal with myself soon enough), he decided to give away $10 a day every day for a year to people and record it all while he did it. I doubt my post-employment activities will be anywhere near as noble.

He’s been at it for 80+ days at this point and there are some great stories in there – keep up the good work Reed :)   You can find it at:

YearOfGiving.org

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Facebook, Twitter, Aol. etc.

 Goings On, Techno Geek  No Responses »
Jan 132010
 

Well, it’s the end of an era – Facebook, Twitter and Flickr have completely sated my need to publish things to the web.  I may come back and resurrect the blog at some point, or I may try something completely different but it seems certain given my infrequent updates that the blog will be neglected for the foreseeable future, unless something changes drastically.

Speaking of which, my Aol. days are now drawing to a close.  I have chosen to accept the voluntary package and move on from what is my first real job.  I started at AOL when I was 19 years old and it’s with a mixture of sadness, fear and excitement that I leave that company over 11 years later having made great friends in several countries and learned an enormous amount.  Linked In can point you in the right direction regarding my qualification sif you are looking for someone with extensive experience in everything from dial up connectivity to web operations and Linux system administration.

Oh, and in reference to the post below, I caved and bought the iPhone.  However O2 left such a nasty taste in my mouth that I will likely switch providers as soon as I can out of principle, so I didn’t cave really, right?

:)

 Posted by at 7:27 pm

Done with work (for now)

 Goings On, Pics, Rant/Ramble  2 Responses »
Feb 152009
 

So, I bid adieu to the US office Friday (*sniff*) – was a bit sad to pack everything up and clear out my office, but now comes the hard part – I have to sell everything we are not taking home.  The sofa, coffee table, patio furniture and, of course, the car all have to go.

Rather than doing that of course I procrastinated and did other things instead, like upload the inaugural photos and videos I took, and wrote this post :)

 Posted by at 1:54 pm

No More Exile

 Goings On, Pics, Rant/Ramble, Travel  5 Responses »
Nov 262008
 

It has been quite a few months since I posted last and there has been plenty going on.  The lask of updates was partly due to crazy work load and partly due to a gag order on blogging about the fact that I have to return to Ireland by March.  Until all the appropriate people knew that we were going home, we didn’t want them to find out via a blog.

In any case, it is official – Jen and I are heading back to the Emerald Isle by March 1st 2009 at the latest.  Sad news, but there is nothing to be done about it – apparently I am not educated enough to get a green card and so off I go.  On the bright side, I do get to keep my job – I just have to do it from 3,000 miles away.

We’ll be celebrating our last Thanksgiving with Scott and Lori in Scott’s place tomorrow (thanks for the invite Scott, and the cooking Lori!) which will be excellent.  We’ll also be around for the inauguration and will have had at least a small part of our stay under someone other than George W. Bush as president (and in a Blue Virginia!) for which I am very grateful to the electorate.

Last but not least are the pictures (on Flickr as usual).  We’ve been quite busy as you can see, in something approaching chronological order we have:

A trip to Belize

Jenny’s Birthday

Paul’s Graduation

Mam & Dad Visit DC

Stereophonics @ 9.30 Club

Redskins Vs Cleveland with Matt & TK

Some Shooting

A Tour of Capitol Hill

A long Weekend in Charleston

Hopefully it won’t be as long a gap too my next post, but I think if anything it will just get busier in the near future with the move prep….

Kogod Courtyard

 Goings On, Pics  No Responses »
Nov 202007
 

Since I ended up working from home today I was able to meet Jen in DC at a reasonable hour and so we went in to check out the new Kogod Courtyard in DC.  It is quite impressive – I can’t wait to see that roof when it snows :)

Here’s one with some nice lighting and (conveniently), the name of the place (click for full size):

Kogod Courtyard, DC

As usual, the full set can be found on Flickr.

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 Posted by at 10:57 pm

Dog, Brains, Beer & Football

 Goings On, Pics  1 Response »
Aug 152007
 

It has been a busy week and it is a long way from over.  We started out with the arrival of Matt and Ruth on Friday morning, threw a barbecue at our place on Saturday after we got back from the National Museum of Health and Medicine (very cool – though a bit tricky to get to), then hit Dog the Bounty Hunter (funny as hell) at the Lisner auditorium on Monday night (with associated drinking in Froggy Bottom and Galaxy Hut).  I like this pic (courtesy of Brian) from the museum, plus it’s a good action shot of my “Google is Ruining Everything” SGR t-shirt:

Jen flies back to Ireland today for a quick visit now that Aer Lingus is doing Dulles to Dublin direct, and Matt is also going back to Seattle having successfully launched the new version of Summize (and probably ruined his liver) – so go check that out, it’s pretty cool (and yes, there is a color blind option).  Then I have a Nats game on Thursday, an XBox 360 Elite on its way and last but not least picked up my share of a set of Redskins seasons tickets, so all in all a busy week :)

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 Posted by at 12:46 pm

Muse(ings)

 Goings On  1 Response »
Aug 102007
 

Ryan and I went to see Muse in the Patriot Center – I got the ticket due to my sacrifice of my spot at the 9.30 club for the Smashing Pumpkins – Ryan is a far bigger fan of them than I am so I gave up my ticket to him. It was my first time seeing Muse, and my first trip to the Patriot Center which is bigger than I thought. The size of the arena caused problems for their opening band – Cold War Kids – I think they under played the venue a touch but they had a couple of interesting tracks were generally well received for an opener.

As for Muse, I was very impressed, they put on a good show and have convinced me to buy some of their music – something I would not have done previously based on limited radio exposure. They certainly did not under play the arena and their opening number in particular (from their new album too) was very good, got the crowd going early.

Ryan, who was still coming down from his high as a result of seeing Calla in the Black Cat on Tuesday without only 30 other people and buying a t-shirt directly from the lead singer (posted here) had seen Muse on 2 previous occasions and thought this was the least impressive performance due in part to some potential lip sync and pre-recorded pieces that he spotted.

Not being as familiar with them, I was oblivious to the problems and enjoyed the show. Afterward we headed back to Arlington to catch the second half of One Ton Wonton’s set in Ragtime and had a few beers to wind down. All in all a good night.

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 Posted by at 9:51 am

Indebleu and Lessons in Career Management

 Goings On, Rant/Ramble  5 Responses »
Jul 232007
 

Jen and I hit indebleu on Saturday night for a sligtly more upscale dinner than usual.  The food was excellent – we had the duck meatballs to start followed by the New York Strip (me) and the quail (Jenny).  Jen was too full for dessert so that meant I had the very tasty l’opera dish to myself.  So, only two minor gripes – first, though the wine list is long it is apparently not stocked very well, both of my choices were unavailable and so we went with a recommendation.  That was served slightly too cold but was otherwise a good bottle.  The other gripe (even more minor) was that the service was slightly slow and the waiter needed to get some voice projection lessons.  I would still definitely recommend it, the issues were minor and the food was very good.

As for the lesson in career management – do not tell your boss you are thinking about switching to the management track from the technical track a couple of days before he goes on vacation – wait until he gets back.  That way he does not   gleefully (and somewhat evilly) set you up as his stand in for the duration of his vacation….

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 Posted by at 8:14 am

One Ton Wonton

 Goings On, Pics  No Responses »
Jul 052007
 

Scott’s new band, One Ton Wonton, played at TT Reynolds in Fairfax on Tuesday night and we went along to check them out.  I’d missed their first gig due to my latest European trip, but this time there were no such conflicts.  A good time was had by all, though judging by my head the next day perhaps I had a little too much of a good thing :)

Pictures from the gig are over on Flickr, but here’s one of the shots of the band in action:

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 Posted by at 2:15 pm

First Wonkette, Now The Express

 Goings On  3 Responses »
Jun 292007
 

A random entry from this very blog about the iPhone made it into the Local Blog Log of The Express, which is the free Metro paper published in the area by the Washington Post (see this edition, page 40) and that means it appeared in actual print on actual paper……..

Jenny spotted it while reading The Express on the metro, which is pretty cool.  I think that’s the first time anything I’ve written has been spotted in traditional media.  I don’t know why that matters but for some reason it makes it even better than my first Wonkette link, though I don’t think it will generate similar traffic levels :)

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 Posted by at 9:55 am
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