118 - Happy New Year

Well lets kick off this post by inviting you to look at a totally random fireworks display from the Sydney.

So new years resolution are you going to make. I love making, and trying to keep, new years resolutions. I totally believe in doing a few of them. Alot of people, and I have done it myself in the past, joke about their new new years resolution being that they are going to not have any new years resolutions. But why now try something. Choose to be a better you. Studies have shown that people who make new years resolutions are 41% more likely to still have kept the resolution going 6 months on compared to around 16%  for people who chose to make a resolution for some other time for the year.

I know that this year coming I am going to have an app on the Google Play store for a client that I have made myself (or myself and a business partner). There are a million things you could so to improve yourself, and even if it only lasted a few months, weeks, or even days, isn't it better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all!

Anyway... 2013. I had a good 2013. I finished college, I got my Brown Belt in Karate. In general all my family and friends are doing well. Ah it was a good year. I am especially that those stupid number plates will be gone, you know 131 and 132 ones on new cars, you know, the ones because people were afraid of ghosts. Yeah, every time I saw a new car I was embarrassed for the owner.

So we got our Sky television fixed today. Now we have some HD channels and they look fantastic. The only bad thing about Sky HD is that when you look at crap like Sharknado you see with extra crisp clarity exactly how bad it is.

Anyway, I hope those of you who have read this blog so far have enjoyed it. Hopefully I will be able to keep in going in 2014.

117 - Heavy Rain

There is no where better in the world to be when it is doing that really heavy rain than in the car. I was driving home in Carraroe around the twisty back road during a pelting rain storm. Well actually no, it was not a storm, it was pouring down, straight down and as I drove with my lights on full I could see huge rain drops sparkling all the way in front of me.

You know when you are in bed and you hear the wind and rain on the window, and you pull the duvet close up under your chin and you feel safe and cosy in the heat of the bed. I love that feeling. It is kinda the same when I'm in the car with the heat on, maybe some music, going around corners, nice driving, straights, nice big puddles to splash through. No rush anywhere. Just me and the rain.

116 - Movie 43

What can one day about Movie 43? Well it has a story. .. am... Some of the acting is quite good.

Oh yeah, and with enough money you can get some people to do anything. Then again,  I guess they are all actors and they were all doing a job. That's all I can say.

115 - Holy Rusted Metal Batman

I was in church today at a family thing. I went in with my wife and kids. We all bustled up to the top of the church. We got the kids ready by taking of their jackets etc. I put a jacket on the empty space on the pew beside me and then

"Take off your hat!" A grumpy old man who obviously never actually really thought of the words of the gospel, or in reality never really listened to them saw it best to, instead of learning the teachings of the bible, instruct me on what I should be wearing in church. Now I get his point. In church take of your hat, respect, yahdi yahda.

Now this is on the back of the mass we were at yesterday where a woman bit the head of us because we "went the wrong way" on the way down to the corp criost.

Are these people the role models of the church? Am I meant to bow respectfully at these elderly citizens of the church and scream back their deaf old ears "excuse me! for I am surely a buffoon heathen and I am not privy to the many rules and regulations and customs of your cold little closed in society. Thanks for drawing my attention away from the entity you call the creator of the universe and of Man, he who is all knowing, infinity loving just so I can take of my hat, or indeed walk between the correct seats and please you O bigotted angry fart."

I know my god. I don't queue for it. I don't bow to it. I don't pay it money. When I was younger I thought that was the good in the bible. The more I go to church though the more I realise how very wrong I was.

114 - Must... Stop... Eating.... Crap....

Sick again today kinda... well no,  I was worse yesterday. But it was no picnic today. Damn must detox like hell when I get home to Carraroe (tomorrow). Seriously. All Christmas I have felt like crap. Not a nice feeling. Why do we do this to ourselves. I am saying this to all the other foolish over eaters like myself. What were we thinking. Of course I know what they are all saying. We were not thinking. There was nice food in front of them. They were not hungry. The slice was big, one little piece off the side would do no one any harm. Mmmm, that was nice... one other little piece. Ah that was nice it will do. Wait a second, where is the rest of the cake gone, oh wait it is in my hand. And...

... now its gone!

113 - Boxing Day...

It used to be a thing around Carraroe that on Boxing day, or Lá an Dreoilín people would go around with a Dreoilin. A Wren, is that it? Was that the on Boxing Day? Of course because the majority of people is stupider than any single one person the exercise was looked down upon. So now no one goes out on Boxing day and Boxing Day is simply just another x-boxing day. And what of the Wren. No one, and I pretty much mean no one, cares about the Wren because now no one knows what a Wren looks like. There was a time back in the 80's when everyone knew what one looked like. Now no one knows. Of course ask most kids, and I mean most kids, what an AK-47 is and they will know exactly.

Kids this is a Dreoilin or a Wren...

Nice one society.

112 - Christmas Day!

Yippee... Santa visited and delivered all the good people a gift. Of course if you did not get a gift that does not mean that you are not a good person... I believe that all people are good people. It is worth remembering that only around 33% of the world does Christmas. So Band Aid... do they know it is Christmas time at all? Probably not... And that is not because they are poor. It is because they do not drink Coke Cola :)

Moving on... I got a Rasberry Pi. Looking forward to using it. It is basically a small Linux box around the size of a deck of cards. The kids loved the whole day putting together Lego they got, and playing with other toys. 

Although, I was sick today, and I mean pretty sick. I simply ate so much crap. I ate loads of crisps last night looking at Once Upon a time... and damn, everything was sitting in my stomach. I could have done with a medicine ball been dropped on my from a height in the way that it was dropped on Jean Claude Van Damme in Kick Boxer. Haven't seen it... torrent the film... 

There is something that I totally despise about Christmas though... actually, despise is too strong a word. I would simply rather, or at least, at the very least like to try out one Christmas where there are no presents at all. I know that one day everyone I love will have passed away and I will be sitting alone in a room and I will wake up on Christmas morning, alone. Alone. Alone. The word in a way is magic to me. 

Alone...

Alone....

It is the funniest irony that what I love the most about Christmas is hanging out with friends. No work. Just friends. But if I am alone, where are my friends. 

111 - Christmas Eve....

Well what do today except sit and wait for Santy tomorrow. By nighttime we placed our Secret Santa presents under the tree and left loads of space for Santy to deliver his presents. We watched some of one of favorite films too for a while - Once Upon A Time In America. Such a great film. And I never hear anyone mention it. If in a conversation I mention it amongst a few people one of them will have seen it, but no one mentions it in the same regard that I have for it. Maybe I am just too hyped up about it. But to me, it is one of De Niro best performaces.

110 - Trip to Westport....

My plan was this morning, get up at the crack of dawn. Slip into the car, head to Westport, do some "last minute shopping", come back to Castlebar and to wake Linda up by presenting her with a cup of coffee. What happened instead was that I slept in loads, felt physically crap for doing so, had to tell Linda that I wanted some shopping time, then went to Westport, chewing up and hour and a half of valuable family time.

Got what I wanted though...

109 - Up to Castlebar and Sophies birthday

So today we headed up to Castlebar. It was a great deal of work getting all the presents, all the surprise gifts, all the clothes, all of us - stuffed into the car. Seriously there was not an inch to spare. But we got everything in. We made our way up to Newport first where Lindas sister Finola had a little birthday party for Sophie. Poor Sophie, she is 9 today! She is beginning to seem to mature. The kid is giving way to the teen in a struggle that will last a few years.

Finally we left Newport and landed exausted to Castlebar, put the kids to bed and relaxed for the night.

108 - First Day Off

A the first day off. I didn't do much. We were meant to go into the cinema but the weather was kinda bad so we never mentioned the cinema to the kids and we just relaxed.

107 - If I ever fly in USA it will be with WestJet...

Nice happy video here. Westjet gives us a purple Santa Claus. Sure he is purple.. yeah it is obviously marketing, obviously it is commercial, but it is a nice feel good video I think.

106 - Moved office

Now, when I say we moved office, I mean that we moved from floor 2 to the ground floor. The day flew in that regard. I am very much waiting for the holidays! After work I went into town and did some christmas shopping. I kinda hated that so I left town as soon as I could.

When I got home Linda was the being the perfect wife, had dinner waiting for me while she was making cookies for the kids tomorrow at school.

105 - Lucy acting! Kids school drama.

Lucy was at a school play this morning at 11. It was amazingly cute. We took some pictures of the play but they are on the phone so the whole thing looks too pixelated to go up here. Rest assured that all the 'actors' were brilliant!

Into work then for a talk with the boss and then the company Christmas dinner in The Front Door. Was nice....

104 - Tuesday....

Okay... another one of those what the hell did I do today days....

So my question is.. what did I do today? I know that in the evening I came home and we had board games. They were good, but I feel as if I will not be doing a whole lot of board gaming during Christmas.

103 - Karate break

No I did not break a leg or a hand. We are taking a break from classes and we will be back in the new year around mid January. Would you think about joining? I am not learning this video...

Bassai Dai... my road to the Black...

102 - Sophies Carraroe birthday party.

I saw Carraroe birthday party because she will be in Castlebar on the actual day of her birthday. Her friends were at this one and she received many cool presents. We mad

e her a Minecraft cake! It was delicious!

101 - Christmas Market

Lucy setting up the table...

Boy did we have a busy day this Saturday. We had a table at the Christmas Market that was happening in Carraroe in the lovely new hall in the old Industrial Estate. There were 40 tables and my understanding is that they were all sold out. Santy came and the kids had tons of fun.

We had a table there of course with our little business Connemara Computer Clinic. We had a competition to win a hamper and an angry birds game. It was brilliant fun, but... it was tiring..

Sophie making up some posters advertising our angry birds game.

It began at 11am to the public but we were there since before 10am and it went on until 3pm although that seemed like hours and hours more than it actually was. But still an excellent day...

When we got home we began preparing things for Sophies party tomorrow!

100 - A century of blogging!

A century of blogging! Well, in the sence that a century is a hundred. Can you believe it! A hundred days! Again this is a kind of mile stone because I am almost a third of the way there. Cool I can't wait until I have the whole year done, then I will never blog again :) Only messing.... I am doing it because I like it. My plan of it dragging me back to the computer is working. I am not getting a whole lot done but I am getting more time on Minecraft!

Also, I have 29,003 views. Twenty nine thousand and three views. Wow, cool. My busiest month ever what December 2011 with 2096 view followed by July this year with 1951 views. Nice. I laugh at my humble little numbers when I think of any Youtuber worth their salt and how they would get 30 thousand view per video!

Amyway, must go to sleep. We watched Invictus this evening, the film about Nelson Mandela and rugby. It was good.

99 - Preparing for market....

So this evening myself and Linda got a whole lot of presents ready to give out at an event that is happening in the village this Saturday... seems strange calling Carraroe a village, but it actually literally is so I guess I am okay with it again. And we have a Minecraft themed birthday party happening on Sunday so we did some research for that. Some of the stuff out there is amazing I have to say!

Can't wait to get baking. I will provide images :)

98 - Okay, I don't hate shopping THAT much....

You might have already seen this article but then again, you might not have. But this person killed himself because his girlfriend told him that he was going to go into another shop! I have to say, respect to the dude... he really made a point, but I think I would sooner simply say "I am leaving you" rather than kill myself. Of course the whole "serious side" to this is that the poor guy was probably depressed or something and really needed medical therapy help rather than retail therapy. Anyway... it was strange...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520753/Chinese-boyfriend-jumped-death-girlfriend-insisted-going-clothes-shop.html

97 - Nothing much going on....

Hmmm, had one of those days where not alot is happening? Myself and a friend are thinking of working on an app together.

96 - Grace Hopper

Today Google had Grace Hopper on the cover of their page as their Google Doodle. I had heard of Grave Hopper before but damn, I had not heard enough. She was amazing. She did so many things for computers that it is really actually quite difficult to imagine the world without her. A few of the favorite things about her that I like are the fact that she popularized the term "Bug" in a computer program. While the term had been used by engineers before her, she referred to the instance of finding a moth in the mainframe that she was working on, and which was preventing her program to run correctly, as a "bug in the system".

Wow, the actual "Bug" in that was in her program...

She invented the first compiler, a program that would take 1's and 0's (Machine Code) and turn it into a human readable form. But there was something really cool I heard a Kurt Beyer recalling on attending a talk she was giving. At the age of 80 her topic was about the future. The future of personal computer, the future of how people will comminicate. She looked ahead, not back.

Do yourself a favor and take a moment to look at this page about her:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper

95 - Sunday Christmas Market in Eyre Square

Took the kids into the Christmas Market in Eyre Square today. I should have taken a picture but I was too tired to think of anything else other than driving and walking with the kids and Linda. I have to stress that I was really really tired. I was out on a Christmas party with the Carraroe Karate Club and it was really late when we got home. Somewhere in the region of 3 - 4 hours. This should not be a problem normally actually but I had done almost 2 hours of grading yesterday, well, around an hour and forty minutes.

Not my picture I have to add.... kids loved the carousal 

Anyway....

Kids. Market. Food. Christmas Market was brilliant. They have loads of different foods. Well then again, loads of different? I seem to think that there were more stands last year with a greater variety of food. Not that that really makes any difference to me. Really all I was ever going to eat was pizza or some sugar coated kind of food.

94 - Grading Day - Brown Belt!

Today I got a Brown Belt in Karate. It took alot of work, alot of training. Alot of getting off my ass and practicing katas. Alot of coming home from work only to turn on my heal and go up to the hall in Carraroe for 2 hours. But I was training with a great bunch of people and at the end of every class it was all worth it. Going up a belt is the ultimate reward for all this work. They symbolize all the work you have done I think. That is what it means to me anyway.

Brown Karate Belt

So this Saturday we had a grading where we are tested on basics and katas. I passed all my tests and now I have a brown belt! There are 3 belts in the brown, so I have 2 more grades and then a pre-Dan. After the pre-Dan I have the 1st Dan which is a black belt. In other words, I am on the first of 3 browns and then I am going for Black... that should happen hopefully some time in 2016 I think, or 2017.

Pretty cool. I am really looking forward to the next few years!

93 - Thank Crunchie it's Friday...

Not feeling the best at the moment and slightly nervous about grading tomorrow I got home and basically went to bed at around midnight-ish.

92 - Thursday

Damn I have no idea what I did today...

91 - Wednesday Karate

This was the last day we have karate before Saturday! Good enough...

90 - Stressed Out? List to the most relaxing music ever...

Well the most relaxing ever according to scientists... I have had a listen to it and I have to say that yes it is relaxing!

89 - Connemara

Driving into work this morning I found myself enjoying the sight of the sun rising behind a silver cloud. There was a little bit of blue sky above that again which highlighted the pretty sun rise. Then I found myself looking at the fields with their luscious green grass and brown reeds with pockets of nettles and doc leaves here and there. Some of the fields have bubbles of white sheep gnawing away at the peat, some have cows staring bored into the heavens, probably thinking what I was just thinking about the beautiful landscape. Some fields, and I am always surprised by this, have horses in them proud, noble lords of the countryside I think. And all these fields are divied by stone walls layed by men whom have not outlived their construction.

Connemara

A few roads run through here, beside the sea and through the bog like veins that carry blood around the body. The people are the blood, the life as I know it, that keep it alive. And there are beautiful voices, Irish, English, French, Polish what have you - all whom add to the fantastic tapestry of modern and ancient society. It is alive here, the shops are alive, religions are alive, the pubs are alive, sports are alive. Houses are strewn without real plan down byroads off byroad... peoples homes... they are not bad social planning, they are not a drain on the water supply or anything negative as some peoples would have you think, these are peoples homes where memories are made and where people are born and die. The whole of every walk of life happens here. 

If it were a song I would play it over and over again. If it were a secret I would spread it to everyone I know. If it were a picture I would hang it over the fireplace where I can see it every day. If it were a food... I would taste it slowly, then devour it whole... but it is none of these, it is my home, my lovely Connemara. 

88 - Sunday....

Sunday... the kids let me sleep in. I got up, tidied up the house, the kids bedrooms. When down to the folks for dinner. It was a typical and nice Sunday. Linda came back and we chilled in the evening and watched some Big Bang Theory.

All good...

87 - Damn, this kid thing!

I tell you, you need a licence to have a dog but anyone is allowed to have a kid (well almost anyone - looking at you China!). My two are angels but still tough work... can't wait till my wife is back from her much deserved weekend break!

86 - Late Late Toy Show...

Yeaahhhh Late Late Toy Show! The toy show could be viewed as as lame... could be. Of course it is not. It is a chance for kids to get a potential view of what toys they might finally ask for from Santy and it is a chance for mums, dads, guardians, etc to see what the hell the kids are talking about. That mysterious toy speak they have learnt from watching hours upon hours of ads on childrens television while you are busy sleeping or working or whatever it is you do in the morning. Then they dispence it on you so freely and casually you don't want to seem like "one of those parents" that is looking at their lips move while you think to yourself, "what on Earth are they going on about??".

Okay, my point is the following, Late Late Toy Show, for most people = good.

TV3 on the other hand... the toy show. I am not even going to bother capitalising its title correctly. While it was informative in the since the idea was 'here are the most sought after toys this christmas' there were a few things about it that I did not like. First the judging panel was a bunch of kids who gave every single toy bar one a score of 1000 out of 10, or mega out of 10 or something. But they are kids, easily swayed. Damn, the presenter however! He came across to me personally as the slimiest, most leading presenter ever dripping his opinion over all the kids with thing like ".... and, and that the Fuuuuuuurby. You like dha didn't ya! Didn't ya! Would ya give dha 10 oura 10 neow, would'dha? Would'dha!" to which the dazed kids would respond "yeah.... I loved it!". You see they were allowed to play with toys in exchange fir talking on TV... to a stranger, in a studio... in front of the 10 or so other crew that are staring them in the face! Of course they are going to say they love everything!

Ryan Tuberty on the other hand was funny, violent with the toys as usual (which we love) and most notibly, not leading his questions.

Hear that TV3.... yeah.... NOT leading his questions!

85 - Thursday....

Felt kinda crap today... and lately to tell the truth. Yeah... I feel kinda dead-endy... I don't know. One of those days of wake up, work, home, eat, sleep... hmmm