Horah - bank holiday weekend! Work was good today. Busy, but not totally manic. Completely nackered though after doing two nights. S and S spent the day shopping in Dublin so maybe we wont be doing that again tomorrow.

At home again after redoing the over night work last night. This time it was left live, but I am not convinced it's all 100%... Back at 5:30am so slightly better again.

Went for a lovely meal with R&S last night - before having to go back into work. Left the day shift about 3pm so I could get a couple of hours kip before going out to dinner.

S has taken this afternoon and tomorrow off to spend with S who is visiting for a long weekend. My S has been home, collected her car and gone off to meet S off the Air Coach. Given it's proximity to work I decided to stay here!

Got home earlier than the last attempt at this over night work which was one plus. Was in bed by about 6:30am - so 25 mins or so before the alarm went off for S. The actual work was a bit of a waste of time as I managed to find a problem just by doing a test I wasn't going to bother with, which the supplier couldn't fix on the night. Ho hum. I guess we'll be trying again at some point soon!

Got up at 12ish and took the DART into Blackrock to meet S for lunch - which was very nice. Back here now for a bit of a slob before doing the hoovering etc. Having failed to resist reading my work email, I now have to resist answering any of it... It'll all be there tomorrow!

Wow, nearly a week between posts. Getting slack! Wednesday off last week was somewhat dull, but the antibiotics did kick in quickly. I still have a day left but am pretty much better. I was back at work on Thursday. Friday we had to pack up ready for the move up a floor and over the other side of the building. That meant getting a crate under my desk and pushing the contents off desk into crate.

J arrived on Wednesday evening. She entertained herself on thur/fri but we drove down to Wexford fri evening for the weekend (D&T were not there) It was nice to visit Wexford town on sat as have not been there for ages. Living here now we tend to visit D&T but not stay around to do things like go into Wexford... After we went to Hook Head for a lovely walk. The weather was not what was promised but at least it didn't rain. S wasn't feeling great so sat down and read while J and I walked - until the path got very un obvious and we found a field of bulls with no obvious way in or out for walkers. J and I gave up and went and found S, but after doing so watched people wonder into the field without a care following where the path must have gone.

Dropped J off at the Air Coach before work - the Leopardstown route seems to be going as far as the Bewleys Hotel which is dead handy for work, but the website hasn't been updated to say they go there, nor has their info phone line. The fact that I can see the buses going there out of the office wasn't convincing enough that one would turn up this morning so took her to the old "end" stop.  Managed to find my new desk and all my stuff had turned up. The monitor next to the monitor stand... It's more cramped up there than where we were and the view is far naffer but such is life. I hope director in question likes his new view where we used to be...

Going back in for an overnighter shortly. Doing the same work I did the other week, but I hope this time it will go quicker as everyone involved has done it before.

Dear Blogger,
 
Why have you made changes to the blogging interface so that it took me 3 attempts to get the links in the previous post working correctly? They're not even that interesting.
 
Love
A.

Give me the flu any day. At least with that you can lie down, sleep and attempt to forget you've got it. I have now progressed onto "bad" sinusitus which comes with complementary throbbing head ache that no pain killer gets rid of. Having been woken up in the night with said head ache I decided enough was enough and booked myself in at the local Dr. In Ireland seeing the Dr is a different experience to that in the UK. Here they will gladly see you the day you are ill and not make you wait 2 weeks when you have forgotten what the problem was (or died of it). However the down side is that they insist on relieving you of 45yoyos on the way out. I decided that to get rid of this head ache was well worth it assuming they would actually do something and not tell me to go away and that it would get better on its own... The nice Dr diagnosed the bad sinusitus - which I have never had before (and never want again) and she was not impressed that I'd been back at work. She wrote me a note for work to take at least tomorrow off and possibly the rest of the week. Only problem with more than tomorrow is that I'll be bored silly. Day time TV aint what it used to be.
 
Over the weekend neither of us was feeling great so we did very little. We managed to go to Liffey Valley to get Ss rings looked at. While there we saw Shrek2 which was excellent!

Hmph. Spent the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday either in bed or on the sofa feeling crap. Went back to work on Thursday against Ss better judgment. She was right in that I could have done with the time to get fully better but work was getting so manic and on the verge of disaster I thought I had better go in. As a result felt fairly awful today but still had to go in... Found out the overnight work from Monday went horribly wrong on Tuesday so got revered tue night. Means another day off when they try again I guess.
 
Managed to spend half the day arguing the secret meaning behind the term "Subscriber" today, as it turns out my notion that it was obvious what was meant was not shared by others. Oh well, maybe I'm in the wrong business.
 
I seem to be thinking more and more that I should have done a Zoology degree instead of getting bogged down in the IT world but I cant really see myself doing anything radical about it.

Have just woken up after the over night intervention finally going ahead at work. It went well in that the new thing was left live in the network (so it cant have been a complete disaster!) but was not an easy night. Some interventions are superb, you get woken up at 3am, pop into work for about an hour and a half testing, conclude all is fine and go home, sleep for the next day and have another day off. However last night was hard work! Got there for 11, didn't leave until 7 and had to do quite a lot throughout. Had a rather eager external tester sitting with me all night too. But it was helpful to have someone to make all the test calls.

So what to do with the rest of the day? Go back to sleep? Watch TV? I am still feeling crap so staying in bed sounds like a good option. How I love wireless networking :-)

Have had a lovely weekend, although am feeling hot and coldy which doesn't bode well for work tomorrow. The over night is definitely tomorrow as well and I could do with the extra annual leave! Will see how I feel in the morning. While on the subject, it's been pointed out that if I don't talk about work, given I spent most of my woken life there this blog will be pretty short... I'm sure I'll let the odd rant slip in. There are more cunning alternatives, which I might look into as I seem to be keeping writing this thing up.

Anyway, I digress. The weekend, S drove us to D&Ts on Friday and we were joined by R&M on Sat. We had a lovely although brief time together. Playing (how do you spell the French for Bowls??) on the lawn, on the drive, round the house and almost under a tractor, followed by an amazing leg of lamb for dinner (kindly donated by a local farmer. baaaaaaaaaa) We said goodbye and drove back here after a pub lunch - nice carvery, not too amazing pub. S has gone out tonight for a goodbye meal for a colleague, leaving me here to do the washing up, attempt to iron some trousers and hoover. Having done all that (and neither the iron or hoover exploded) I am nackered and feeling a bit crappy so I think I'll go read until I fall asleep.

You can guess who sent me this. Amazing what one guy can do with three biros, 11 sheets of A4, and 11 boring nightshifts. What I want to know is why there is a ZX spectrum down near hell...

Oh bumflaps. Email server seems to be down and has been all evening which is annoying. I'll just have to wait until tomorrow to read that feedback...

Once again no overnighter today, but I am assured it WILL be Monday. We'll see! Shame as I was due another one then so that is a waste. The phrase regarding other work things at the moment rhymes with "clucking bell".

3rd day in a row I went to work prepared to leave early to get a couple of hours kip before doing an over nighter only for it to get called off at the last minute. I'm told it should be tomorrow... Well I've heard that before!

There's lots I'd like to rant about work but witnessing the hassle that a friend and former colleague had when our ex employer decided to read his blog I've decided that on reflection to by and large leave work out of it. Shame really, but easier in the long run!

Was meant to be doing an overnight shift at work, giving me the day off tomorrow, but it was cancelled at the last minute. Should be on Wednesday instead, so I suppose Thursday off is just as good. Having spent half the day preparing for it I hope it does go ahead this week.

And now for something completely different:

You may remember me mentioning about how the summer was all about Girls Aloud vs. Rachael Stevens? Well, the results are in, and la S Club girlie is the winner. Mainly because her song has drums that sound just like this song here.....

You are a strange boy J! While I'm on the subject, I have received complementary feedback on your England write up.

The Hurling was superb! Really enjoyed it - although not sure I am qualified to do a write up of the game. Wexford beat Offaly 2-12 to 1-11 - read here for a proper write up!

We got there early so parked in the streets near by Croke Park, the local youth as resourceful as those in Aston in asking for cash to "watch" over your car. I guess €5 for them not to baseball bat it is worth the money. 3 sides of Croke Park are very impressive - the stadium overall is superb. While I understand (in simple terms explained to me!) the history behind not wanting to develop Hill 16, I personally think it's a shame that it's not a complete stadium.

We got there in time to see the minor game between Dublin and Kilkenny. The reliable Irish weather didn't disappoint and reliably started off sunny, then p*ssed it down during the minor game, then was sunny for the first half of the senior game... Depending on the wind, you get wet or soaked.

The main game showed the difference in skill between it and the minors. The Wexford keeper made some superb saves in the first half and the game was very enjoyable and close to the end - a very tense end!

Got home in time to watch the surprise win for Greece over Portugal (who must have thought they had it in the bag).

And so another weekend just doesn't seem long enough. Tomorrow has the potential for a full day at work followed by a 12 hour shift over night. Fun!

Off to Croke Park for a Hurling match between Offaly and Wexford! Going as a Wexford fan obviously... Looking forward to it - report to follow when I get back later.

I'm still at work at 18:30! But don't worry, I'm not working any more, just waiting for people to get ready for the bus into town where we are meeting a couple of old friends/colleagues for a drink or 5. We could take the Luas as it's free until Sunday, but then again the work bus is 10 mins closer and also free. I'll be getting the last DART back as taxis are too expensive and unwilling to go to Bray plus I'm nackered enough now!

Today's work started with a trip to a supplier by taxi - which was waiting for me about 2 mins after I got here. Since I'd bought a 5 day train ticket I didn't want to bring the car to see a demo that told me something I could have found out in 2 mins on the phone. It was a good demo though and worth seeing, if only for personal interest more than what I found out for the project.

Someone has offered me a pint, so I'll leave this here! (mine's a pint of the black stuff)