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….

 Posted by at 11:40 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

New Pictures, and Back in Ireland

 Pics, Travel  No Responses »
Dec 162007
 

 So, finally an update now that I am on vacation and have time for things like blog entries.  First of all, a few new pictures of us out in Arlington before Jenny and I fled back to Ireland for the holidays, I waited until the end of the night to break the camera out, so everyone is nice and merry (yours truly included).  Here’s a good one, I like to think I said something witty and hilarious to cause the reactions:

I'm funny dammit!

As for the old country – I arrived home yesterday and am still randomly falling asleep/unable to sleep due to jet lag, but other than that all is well.  It’s great to be backk home and see everyone – next up, shopping :)

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 Posted by at 3:35 pm

The Other Dublin

 Travel  1 Response »
Aug 202007
 

I will be traveling to Ohio later today for business, and besides the fact that there is another Dublin there (where I will be staying in fact) I have absolutely no knowledge of the area – in fact I just now found out where it actually was besides a vague impression of it being west-ish of here.  I mean, it doesn’t have Rocky Steps even :)

Still, besides the work stuff, I’m sure that a good time will be had by all.  I mean, the place has bars right?

If anyone has any suggestions on what I should get up to in Columbus/Dublin, then by all means leave a comment.

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 Posted by at 12:57 pm

Philadelphia, but no skydiving……

 Pics, Travel  7 Responses »
Jul 292007
 

So, we visited Philly and had a great time, but my skydiving was called off thanks to the horrible weather today – I’m pretty disappointed but that’s the way the cookie crumbles I guess. We did the Rocky steps of course (see picture below – and yes, the cheezy pose is mandatory) as well as the Art Museum that is apparently located in the same place (Jenny thought it would be bad not to). We passed on the Liberty Bell because the line was ridiculous and just had a wander around City Hall and Love Park instead.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcomerford/943363031/

I think Philly gets a thumbs up overall, it certainly has more of a proper city feel than DC, and the food we had was fantastic. Alma De Cuba cannot be recommended highly enough – the food, presentation and service were all top notch and it was only a couple hundred yards from the Sofitel we were staying at, which I can also recommend as a place to stay. The dessert picture below is of their signature “Chocolate Cigar” – absolutely yummy. I think to cheer myself up for missing skydiving I will go watch a summer blockbuster for a couple of hours…..

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 Posted by at 9:13 pm

Working in Dublin

 Pics, Travel  3 Responses »
Jun 222007
 

It’s a little weird to be working back at the old office 3 years later, though I suppose with all the people that have left and the layout changes it is not really the “old office” but there are still plenty of familiar faces about. I’d visited before, but not actually had to seriously work like the last couple of days. In addition to using up their meeting rooms, we crashed their summer office party at the races in Leopardstown on Wednesday which was good fun, but (of course) I won nothing. As you can see in the picture below, we (or at least Dave) tried to blend in convincingly, not sure we quite managed it though. The rest of the pictures have been added to the existing set, I prmise to take nicer ones of Dublin if it ever stops raining.

Today is my last work day, then I get to relax and hang around Dublin Saturday before I fly back to the US on Sunday morning which is approaching with the usual mix of anticipation and irritation – you want to get home but don’t want to spend 12-14 hours traveling….

Dave at AOL Party

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 Posted by at 3:29 am

Recovering in London

 Pics, Travel  2 Responses »
Jun 172007
 

Today is a lazy day so far, needs to be after the last couple of nights :) Dennis and I have been getting after it a bit this weekend since I got to London Friday evening. Since his room mate is out of town I have been staying with him in his place in Kensington, which apparently used to be Anna Friel’s place :)

Looks like I’ll be heading to Brick Lane to have some food with Jan and Ev so that I can buy them some congratulatory drinks, then the plan is to have a quiet one so that I’m not a zombie for work tomorrow. We had dinner on a boat last night before heading to Walkabout for a birthday party, then back to Archangel for some signature cocktails and the pictures are up in the usual place. Below is a shot pre-dinner with the Eye and Big Ben in the background, one of my favourites so far, red eye and all :)

Adam London Eye

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 Posted by at 11:57 am

The White Clothed People Mystery (and more pics from Paris)

 Pics, Travel  3 Responses »
Jun 142007
 

We hit the Champs-Élysées today and went to the top of the Arc de Triomph before grabbing some yummy food and some beers down that way – I took a few more shots and added them to the existing set, I think the one below is my favourite.  As for the mystery – anyone know why there were hundreds of people dressed all in white eating dinner and generally having a good time all around the Arc?

It was pretty cool whatever the reason, though the pictures don’t do it justice.  I took some video too – maybe it i time to finally post some stuff on Youtube too…..
Arc De Triomph Sunset

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 Posted by at 5:38 pm

Bonjour from Paris

 Travel  9 Responses »
Jun 142007
 

A quick note, because I actually have managed to upload some pictures.  After grabbing some shut eye after 28 hours of continuous consciousness (sleeping in economy is not an option), I finally feel somewhat human.

Some highlights include the ability to see the Eiffel Tower from my hotel room and the fact that the room/suite is the size of a decent apartment.  The pictures are up here, but here’s the tower at night as a sampler, hopefully I can continue to upload as the trip goes on….

Eiffel Tower - Night

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 Posted by at 1:32 am

Homeward Bound (eventually)

 Goings On, Travel  No Responses »
Jun 112007
 

Just as things start to calm down and I think I might get back to having some free time along comes another business trip – with no visa stuff tacked on this time though.  I’ll be hitting Paris, London and then Dublin before heading back stateside, and after a weekend in North Carolina that is a lot of miles in a couple of weeks.

Still, will be good to get home again for free and since half of my college class and several old cow-orkers are living in London these days, that should be a nice stop too.  I’m going to take the Eurostar from Paris for a change – never been on it before and it’ll make a nice change from planes, plus CDG sucks in general.

No business class on the way out, because it was full! Some air show or other is on in France and has sabotaged our business upgrade, grrr.  I should get it on the way back though which is the important part.  This time I plan on taking some more pictures and may even post them on the road, wouldn’t that be nice…..

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 Posted by at 1:06 pm

Christmas Presents and Pictures

 Goings On, Pics, Travel  No Responses »
Jan 022007
 

I was planning on replacing my aging Sony Cybershot DSC P5 before our trip to Savannah at the start of December – it’s big and bulky by today’s standards and 3.2 megapixels just doesn’t cut it these days. That being said, I remember when I got it back in 2002 and how everyone thought it was tiny and the picture quality was amazing….

Anyway, Jenny’s Dad loves his photography and so I asked him for advice on what to get in terms of a point-and-shoot camera with a view to getting a DSLR later if I think it is worthwhile. He insisted that he buy me a new camera as a Christmas present so I put off my purchase. He made a great choice – the Canon Powershot SD900 (well technically it’s actually the Canon Ixus SD900Ti because it was bought in Europe). I had been looking at the Canon range in the first place, so it was the perfect present – I shouldn’t have been surprised, Jenny has repeatedly told me how good her Dad is at buying presents.

The first pictures taken with the new camera are up on Flickr now, here are the links to the sets directly:

For obvious reasons, I think this is my favourite so far :)

Menage a trois!

I will be playing with the macro function (not on the Sony) and it looks like I’ll actually have to read the manual to get the most out of the camera. One thing is for sure though – I’m glad I have a 2 GB card in there, the pictures on “super fine” resolution are coming in at over 3 MB a piece and my laptop chugs a bit when I open them to manipulate the pictures. I don’t see this on the dual core monster at home though and I suspect it is hard drive speed that is the key factor.

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 Posted by at 3:51 pm
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