The International Adventures of HRputer

My New Toy

2011-01-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

After a couple months considering whether or not I wanted to buy an iPad, I decided to get a Samsung Galaxy Tablet. I've been mulling over the decision for the last 2 months and then in the last two weeks the momentum just became too great to resist. I finally broke down yesterday and bought the Galaxy.

I was originally going to wait for the Adam by Notion Ink (an Indian start-up) but I got tired of waiting for them to get their product through FCC approval. Additionally, I decided that I wanted something smaller that could fit in my jacket pocket. The Adam comes in at 10 inches, slightly bigger than the iPad. I also considered waiting for the iPad 2, but couldn't want to wait until April (the supposed release date).

So why the Galaxy over the iPad? First off, as I just said, I wanted something smaller. At 7 inches, the Galaxy fits in my pocket, where the iPad with its 9 inch screen is just a little too big. Other selling points for the Galaxy were the removable/expandable microsSD card, the front and rear mounted cameras, and its ability to run flash applications.

I spent a lot of time justifying this purchase and after owning it now for 24 hours, I think it was a good purchase I think that the tablets have a ways to go yet and perhaps when I'm ready to upgrade in 2 years the products will be more mature. For now, I'm happy that I bought it. (and am now addicted to Angry Birds)

Underdressed

2011-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

It's kind of funny that I should write a blog about being underdressed while I was in Dublin. Since I've been there, I've been dressing up while at work - always wearing a suit or at minimum a sport coat and slacks (but no ties). So how is that in one night, I felt SO underdressed twice? Let me tell you the story . . .

It started with the intention to go on a Literary Pub Crawl and when that plan fell through (due to lack of interest), we decided to have a pint at a pub then head on the Dublin Ghost Bus Tour. Neither of which would warrant anybody wearing anything more than jeans and a hoodie . . . so that's what I wore. My colleagues wore similar.

Little did I know that the evening would take a turn to the more formal. The Ghost Bus tour was full and we started our progressive dinner (more details). As we departed Yamamuri and headed for Fallon & Byrne, we didn't realize how classy our next destination was going to be. When we got to the restaurant, we could obviously tell that we were underdressed, but for some reason I still asked the maitre d' if he had room for 4. He did. In the back corner by the kitchen. Sitting next to the kitchen in my hoodie, jeans and sneakers, I would have just as happily been sitting in the kitchen. The men in the restaurant weren't dressed up so much (collared shirts & slacks)as the ladies (dresses). Alternatively, would have been content if the maitre d' had turned us away for our dress (or lack thereof). To his credit, he tried his best to make us feel comfortable. It didn't work. But, we stayed because the food was excellent!

By midnight, we were looking for one last place to have a drink and were guided to the Cafe En Seine (a.k.a. Cafe Insane) by one of our single colleagues. I haven't been to a meat market like this in over a decade. On our way in and before I said a word (and an accent could be distinguished) he said to me: "An American are ye?" I could only nod as continued. "Ye couldn't dress up a little? The ladies like that. Jaysus! Ye're wearing runners for chrissake." I guess we Americans have a habit of showing up to Irish clubs underdressed. I replied, "I'm not looking to pick up any ladies." After a little more slagging from the bouncer (". . . . well the men like it, too . . ."), we were finally let in. Once inside, we all noticed how horribly under dressed we were. We stayed all of five minutes before leaving. I waited until the bouncer had his back turned and was talking to somebody else before I snuck out of the club.

To tell you the truth, after being here for 18 months it was good to be recognized as an American regardless of what stereotypes it perpertuates.

Lobster Stop

2011-01-22T17:53:00.000-08:00

Due to a labour dispute at Aer Lingus, I had to take an alternate route home on Friday. The route included a layover in Boston for 3 hours. But the good thing is that I made it home - albeit 7 hours later than I would have been home if the direct flight from Dublin to Chicago wasn't canceled.

Anytime there is a customer service opportunity like this, I like to ask for a little extra. Originally, I was going to ask for a free upgrade to business class (I think they would have done it considering my frequent flyer status). However, I spotted a colleague of mine near the back of the line (and the line was not moving quickly ) so I asked if they could book my colleague on the same flights. Aer Lingus were good enough to help him out.

So it was nice to have a colleague and friend on the same route. He was appreciative of the time I saved him and the fact that he'd be getting back home to see his pregnant wife. We had some lobster and beer at the Boston airport before flying back in to Chicago. It was a good time and it was good getting to know him a little better. But still, it was a long day.

Last Weekend Completed

2011-01-18T15:40:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, I listed a bunch of things I wanted to do over the weekend. The weekend went a little differently than planned. After getting some feedback on the Literary Pub Crawl, we (myself and a few colleagues) decided that we didn't want to do it. Engage the backup plan: Dublin Ghost Bus Tour.

Uh-oh, we didn't book ahead of time for the Ghost Bus Tour and both tours were already booked for the night. What was the backup to the backup? We didn't have one, so we made it up as we went: Progressive dinner at three out of the four places that I wanted to eat at before I left: Yamamuri, Fallon & Byrne, and The Port House.

At Yamamuri we had excellent sushi - but an even more excellent Plum Sake Martini - for starters. We were under dressed for Fallon & Byrne, but their main courses were great. Dessert at The Port House was my favorite and I ended up going back for tapas lunch on Sunday.

On Saturday, I did get to feed the seals at Howth one last time (and managed a visit to the Antique Radio Museum). Sunday was so beautiful that I couldn't justify going to indoor exhibits. Instead I walked all over Dublin one last time visiting places like Merrion Square, St. Stephen's Green, The Docklands, The Point (and a ride on the Ferris Wheel), Grafton Street and Temple Bar. Once the sun went down, I did manage a visit to Ireland's National Leprechaun Museum (fun but not worth 10 euro).

The cherry on top of the weekend was a Bears victory over the Seahawks. Bring on the Pack!

One More Weekend in Dublin

2011-01-14T15:12:00.000-08:00

That's right, it's almost over. I fly home next Friday and shouldn't need to spend any weekends here anymore. What does that mean? My longest trips over here should only be for a week. I'd fly out on Sunday evenings and back home on Fridays.

So this is my last weekend in Dublin - oh what should I do? I'm thinking that I'm going to clean up a couple of things that I haven't done yet, like the Literary Pub Crawl and the National Museum of Ireland. I am also I'm going to try to get to my favorite place (Howth) to say goodbye to the seals. All the while, I 'm going to eat at some of the places I've loved to dine at and try a couple that I haven't made it to yet.

One thing that will be on the docket will be a trip back to The Book of Kells. I went to go see this exhibition early in my expatriation and sped through the exhibit because I didn't quite get it. Now I get it and I'm going to try to get back to actually enjoy it.

Last but not least will be a visit to The Woolshed Baa & Grill to watch the Bears game. Go Bears!

Dublinitis

2011-01-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

We've coined a new phrase on our project team: Dublinitis. You might think that Dublinitis is a good thing, that it is refers to a longing to be back in Dublin. You would be wrong. You might then think that it has something to do with drinking a little too much of the Guinness. Once again you would be wrong.

Dublinitis refers to any type of illness that one catches in Dublin while working on our SAP project and is often brought home to our families. Because we have over100 people who fly into Dublin on a weekly basis, there is ample opportunity for somebody catch some kind of bug on the airplanes coming into town - be it a cold or one of various strains of flu. We don't segregate any more. Swine flu? Avian flu? La Grippe? It's all Dublinitis.

It's gotten to a point where our project management office has asked HR to procure flu shots (or "flu jabs" as they are lovingly referred to over here) for the team. I sat through a meeting on Tuesday where our Project Manager told everybody that getting sick during our Northern Ireland deployment go-live was unacceptable because they were providing the flu jab. Granted, I know she was kidding, but Dublinitis has taken it's toll on the project team (and our families).

I got to share Dublinitis with my family over Thanksgiving. My son threw up on my wife just as she sat down to eat at Thanksgiving dinner. They, in turn, shared it with family and friends as well. It's the gift that keeps on giving; it's always very contagious.

I think the next time I go home I'm going to have live in quarantine for a week .Sláinte

Clonmacnoise

2011-01-09T10:31:00.000-08:00

Along the Shannon River in the western part of County Offaly sits a monastic site known as Clonmacnoise. This abbey was founded in 548 AD by Saint Ciaran. It is famous for two reasons: 1) Having two of the best preserved Celtic High Crosses in Ireland and 2) Being the location where some the oldest texts in Ireland were written.

The Celtic High Crosses have been moved indoors to better preserve them and replicas have been staged on the grounds. Even so, it was an impressive place to visit. On the left is a picture of the cross of the scriptures (in it's new protected location). On the right, you'll see a picture of the replica in with the replica South Cross in the back ground

One of the manuscripts written at Clonmacnoise, The Book of the Dun Cow (oldest text written in Irish - circa 11th or 12th century), is now housed at the Royal Academy of Ireland. The book was named so because of the belief that it was written on the hide of St. Ciaran's fabled Dun Cow.

The site - in addition to being the final resting place of St. Ciaran - is also thought to be the final resting place of many of the Kings of Ireland, specifically of the Kings of Connacht and the High Kings of Tara are buried here. It's location which is the crossroads of the main thoroughfares of 6th century Ireland (the Shannon River running North to South and the East-West road running along glacial eskers from Dublin).

It's religious significance was recognized by Pope John Paul II in 1979. It is believed that missionaries from Clonmacnoise brought Christianity to his home country of Poland.

Should Have Asked Santa for Tyvek

2011-01-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

I caught a flight back to Dublin today and should have worn a Tyvek suit. Ay Jaysus!. The girl who sat next to me was coughing. The guy behind me was coughing. Half the frickin' plane was coughing. I'm hoping that I escaped the plague through liberal use of hand sanitizer and copious amounts of Vitamin C. The worst was the guy behind me. I swear I could feel it on the back of my neck when he coughed.

I may need to further sterilize with Guinness this evening.

Bear Down, It's Playoff Time!

2011-01-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

I will freely admit that I am surprised with my Chicago Bears' performance this season. At the beginning of the season, I had them picked to win only 5 or 6 games. They've surprised me and won twice that AND secured the second seed in the NFC playoffs, which comes with a coveted bye week . This means that while the Eagles play the Packers and the Seahawks host the Saints, the Bears (and the Falcons) get to take an extra week to heal and prepare for their first playoff game.

This season has been a very odd one and I give Lovie Smith a lot of credit for what he's done. They've gotten better every week of the season. He's not an exciting coach, but he deserves kudos for what he's accomplished. He already deserves coach of the year, and will deserve it more so if the Bears make any noise in the playoffs. He's given me reason to be a cautious optimist.

It is with such cautious optimism that I approach the NFL playoffs. I want the Bears to win the Super Bowl and I think that they can do it. The only problem is I also believe they have the ability to get blown out at home against the likes of the Saints or the Eagles. So, Bear Down, Chicago Bears and give your fans reason to drop the caution and become carefree optimists! Take us to the Super Bowl and win it!

10,100 Pages

2010-12-31T18:41:00.000-08:00

The official count is in and I accomplished my goal of reading 10,000 pages in one year. In fact, I beat my goal by 100 pages by finishing off Tony Hillerman's Skeleton Man this evening to get myself to my goal. For those who were or weren't keeping track, here is my official list of books that I read in 2010.

Title	Author
The New American Expatriate	William Russell Melton
The Blade Itself	Joe Abercrombie
Before They Are Hanged	Joe Abercrombie
Last Argument of Kings	Joe Abercrombie
All Quiet on the Western Front	Erich Maria LeMarque
Ender's Game	Orson Scott Card
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul	Douglas Adams
The Prince	Niccolo Machiavelli
Siddhartha	Herman Hesse
A Game of Thrones	George R. R. Martin
Free Prize Inside	Seth Godin
Persuasion	Jane Austen
Heart of Darkness and Other Stories	James Conrad
A Clash of Kings	George R. R. Martin
How the Irish Saved Civilization	Thomas Cahill
Water for Elephants	Sara Gruen
Blood of Elves	Andrzej Sapkowski
Thunderhead	Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
A Storm of Swords	George R. R. Martin
Catcher in the Rye	J.D. Salinger
A Feast for Crows	George R. R. Martin
The Graveyard Book	Neil Gaiman
Skeleton Man	Tony Hillerman

23 books total. I hope everybody else met their reading goals as well this year. I don't think I'm going to set the bar as high next year, mostly because I plan on setting some writing goals for the new year. Happy New Year's everybody!

Dude, Where's My Blog?

2010-12-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

First off, let me apologize for the lack of activity as of late. My intent for this post is to explain the lack of content for October/November.

One thing I need everybody to understand is that I love to write. It is one of my favorite hobbies. I love to tell stories, share my experiences with others, and make people laugh. This is why I'm not shy about sharing the "Stupid Things I've Done." I know that I'm not the only person that does stupid things, I just post those stupid things on the internet - which may be stupid in it's own right.

So why the lack of content?

There are two real reasons that I have not posted anything over the last two months. The first is that blogging is much harder than I originally thought it would be. When I committed myself to posting new content every day, I didn't realize how much effort it would take coming up with new content, writing it, and revising it to publishable standards.

Secondly, my international adventure has ceased to be an adventure and has become a chore. This happened around September when I worked in excess of 14 hours for 24 straight days. I burned out on the project and Ireland. The excitement of Ireland as dissipated. I miss my family.

When writing becomes work and one lacks inspiration, it makes it extremely difficult to do. Since I already have a day job, I am not motivated to work another.

I suppose I could have claimed that I've been working crazy hours to get the project live. The truth is that the go-live was smooth and uneventful (just the kind I like). We're live on SAP in Germany and working towards a Northern Ireland pilot in February.

So what's the deal?

I'm going to attempt to make this fun for me again blog at a "hobby level." What does that mean? I'm not sure I know. It does mean that I will post more, but frequency and length of posts are still up in the air. I hope that you all enjoy and keep reading. I'll do my best to keep posting.

Playing Golf the Irish Way

2010-10-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

I've been over in Ireland for over a year now and I finally got out to play a round of golf. Why did it take me so long to get out? Mostly I had too many excuses not to golf (it costs too much, I don't have my clubs with me, I can't get a ride to the golf course, I've got too much work to do, etc.). Last weekend I was back out in Tralee, where our Corporate HQ is located, and I was invited to stick around and play golf on Saturday at the Killarney Golf & Fishing Club, home of the 2010 Irish Open. Unfortunately I didn't get to play the course that the Open was played on as it was already booked.

My foursome was comprised of myself, the company CFO, the Corporate Controller, and the Director of Corporate IT. I've mostly gotten over being awestruck by such people, but it still does put one on edge on the golf course. Add that to the fact that I hadn't played in over a year and the result was an especially awful game of golf. Regardless, I still had fun walking the golf course, hoping the rain would stay away (it did, but we got plenty of wind) and getting to know a couple of C-Level employees.

One interesting thing was the negotiations that went on at the first tee. We negotiated what my handicap was (I have no idea) and they settled on giving me 14 strokes. So it ended up being a pairs match with myself and the IT Director against the Finance guys. Out of 18, I won one hole for my team. We lost the front nine, won the back nine, and lost overall. So I had to pay my fiver to the Corporate Controller. It was all in good fun, but I wish I would have played a little better.

Cooking at the Castle

2010-10-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

On a peninsula northeast of Dublin sits a small fishing village called Howth (pronounced hote). It's a beautiful little town that has a lot to do: eat seafood, feed seals, walk along the cliffs, see a ruined abbey, and much much more. Tuesday night we had a team-building activity which involved taking a cooking class at Howth Castle.

It was a wonderful experience. We broke into two teams of eight and began cooking a four course meal under the guidance of a chef. The chef taught us how to cut, mince, stir, reduce and refresh. Our menu consisted of:

Mediterranean Feta Salad with Pomegranate
Parma-wrapped Chicken Breast with Ricotta Stuffing
Mushroom and Truffle Oil Risotto
Chocolate Truffle Torte

When we were done cooking, we sat down at the table and enjoyed the fruits of our labors. In addition to the fine dinner, we were treated to some legends of Howth Castle by it's current resident - a direct descendant of the builders of the original castle in the 12th century. The legends include a story about a female pirate abducting the heir to Lord Howth because she was offended by the gates being closed - a breach of hospitality. The heir was returned on the promise that the gates would never be closed and that the dinner table would always be set with an extra setting for an unexpected guest. The table is still set with the extra setting over 400 years later. Additionally, a new set of gates were built that could never close.

An intriguing and fun event - fun was had by all! The meal seemed all the more delicious because we prepared it.

Treadmills are Boring

2010-10-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

There is one sure way to get me to exercise. Organize a game of anything that involves two teams playing against each other. Send out an email asking for participants and I will be there. Soccer, I'm there. Softball, I'm there. Team thumb twiddling, count me in!

I've loved team sports since I was kid. I'm sure that my parents remember all the different sports that I needed to play when I was younger (which they paid for and drove me to). I don't know why, but individual sports never appealed to me as much. I do like golfing, but that's more of a "get out with the guys" activity than a sport for me. I certainly don't like going to the gym and walking/running on a monotonous treadmill or going to a track and running in circles.

As I get older, I am lucky to get out and play one game of football a year (Turkey Bowl!). The muscles ache bad after the day of annual exertion. One aspect of my assignment that I've loved has been playing 5-on-5 soccer on Monday/Tuesday nights. I sucked early on, but my play has gotten much better - specifically in goal. However, I still have two left feet when trying to dribble and pass.

My goal keeper skills have won me the starting position for an 11-on-11 grudge match between my company and the hotel where we're working. Next Tuesday night we'll see if I can translate my skills from a small, artificial pitch to a large, grass pitch. I don't have any cleats with me, so I'm not predicting a particularly good showing. Also, I have to protect a goal that is much, much bigger.

Wish me luck!

Tipping in Ireland

2010-10-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

Whenever other Americans come over to the project, there's usually a point where we end up going out to dinner. For me, it's a way to connect with people whose customs are more familiar to me. When I ask them who won The Game, they can tell me that the Bears beat the Packers, not that Man-U got a result against Liverpool. whenever we're out, there's always one question that get's asked, regardless of who's picking up the bill. How much do you tip over here?

For anybody who's curious, here's the answer: 0-10%. Tipping isn't expected over here the same way it is back in the States. That is one reason that it seems more expensive to go out to eat. Their waiters/waitresses get paid a better base wage, which is reflected in the cost of your dinner. However, if you feel you've gotten excellent service, you can give them a 10% tip. I usually won't tip at the bar (when I go up to buy drinks), but will usually tip at a sit-down restaurant. Typically 5-10% depending on the service. Bon Appetit!

Crypts, Stacks, Food & Flicks

2010-10-02T16:16:00.001-07:00

I had a day out today that should make my father proud. I've apparently inherited his ability to fill a day of travel with more things to see than are humanly possible - yet still keep the trip under budget.

10:30am - Marsh's Library 2.50 euro
Marsh's library is a library in Dublin that came highly recommended from my Frommer's guide. The library is old (founded 1701), small and you can't take pictures of anything. However, I found the exhibit they had on old medical books quite interesting. Some of the books dated back to the 13th century. It's interesting to see how medicine and surgery have developed over the years. More impressive, though is seeing medical books that have diagrams drawn by Remmbrandt before he was a famous artist.

11:30am - Christ Church Cathedral 6.00 euro
The Cathedral was built in 1030 AD but has been rebuilt once since then due to a collapse of one whole wall. Though it is now part of the Church of Ireland, it was built before the division of Christianity into its various sects. It is an absolutely beautiful building with wonderful stained glass windows and ornate stone and wood carvings. The crypts are pretty neat, too.

1:00pm - Fish 'n Chips @ Leo Burdocks ~10.00 euro
Leo Burdocks is a famous chip shop in Dublin. There are two locations, one on Liffey St. and the one I went to that is right across from Christ Church Cathedral. The fish was great and the chips were plentiful, but there's nowhere to sit and enjoy your meal. On a sunny day, you can probably set yourself down somewhere on the Christ Church grounds, but it was wet outside. So I found a pub that had a beer garden with an awning. Nobody was outside, so I was able to enjoy my fish and chips in peace, unlike my experience in Monaghan.

1:30pm - Chester Beatty Library FREE!
This library had two large exhibits: Muraqqa' and Sacred Traditions. The artwork in the Muraqqa' exhibit was beautiful (taken from books dating from 17th century India and Iran), however the history was not all that intriguing to me. The Sacred Traditions exposition, however, mesmerized me. It was a wonderful exhibit on three of the major religions of the world: Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. I love getting a more worldly perspective and found a place to do that here in spades. Wonderful exhibits, and it's free! Also there is a wonderful garden outside the library that looks up on Dublin Castle.

3:50pm - The Other Guys ~ 10 euro
After the Library, I got a ticket to see the new Will Farrell/Mark Wahlberg movie. It was freakin' hilarious. I recommend you go see it. It was an interesting perspective seeing the movie with an Irish audience. I found there were a couple of jokes where I was the only one laughing (because the Irish apparently don't know who Ralph Nader is - well at least not this audience).

6:30pm - Fries & a Shake @ Eddie Rocket's ~ 10 euro
Eddie Rockets is what we'd consider a revival 50's diner. You know the type: red vinyl seats, waitresses in pink uniforms, and mini jukeboxes on the table. It's one of my escapes to Americana that I can get while I'm over here. The food was good, but expensive.

8:20pm - Inception ~ 10 euro
This is the movie that's been out for awhile with Leonardo Di Caprio in it. All I can say is that it was a phenomenal movie. I don't go out to the movies to often . . . mostly because I don't like paying 10 euro (that's about $14 US) to see a movie that will cost $4.99 on Comcast in six months. However, this one was worth the price of admission.

It was quite a busy day and I know that my father would approve - with optional criticism that I paid too much for the movies. I did end up cutting one thing from the schedule, but we'll put that one onto the itinerary for another day. So what did I learn today? Chiefly that there are a lot of old books in Dublin and that the Irish don't know who Ralph Nader is.

Feel Free to Continue the Meeting Without Me . . .

2010-10-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, amid my 24 day work-a-thon, I got fed up with the project. I was so stressed out that I just needed a night off. The opportunity presented itself when our Subject Matter Experts (SME's) from Northern Ireland and Germany were in town for system testing.

Roughly 30 of us went out to the local Asian restaurant (the only decent restaurant outside of the hotel within walking distance). I had a few glasses of wine with dinner and when dinner was done, everybody headed back to the hotel bar. I should have kept walking past the hotel and back to my apartment. Instead, I ended up staying up with the late crowd and finally left the hotel for my apartment at 4am, having had more than my share of alcohol.

I skipped my 8am meeting, arriving to work the next day at 8:30am. My colleagues that didn't stay out so late covered the meeting for me (which I have done for others in the past). I was tired. I was hungover. I had SME's leaving that afternoon who I still needed to meet with from whom I needed some vital information. Unfortunately, the only time that they could meet was at 10:30am.

It's hard to explain our location setup . . . we take up so much space in the conference area of the hotel, we now also have some hotel rooms converted into small meeting rooms as well. One of those meeting rooms was open, so I booked it from 8:30am until noon (when my 10:30 meeting was to end). This was a good room, it had a fainting couch. I got up there, locked the door, turned the alarm on my Blackberry to wake me up at 10am and went to sleep.

The alarm went off as planned and I had time to get setup for the meeting. I wasn't as tired, but suddenly, the coffee I had as breakfast was sitting so well in my stomach. I soldiered on, wetting down my hair so it didn't look like I'd just taken a nap in on a sofa in a meeting room.

My colleagues arrived for the meeting and things went well for the first 15 minutes. The coffee in my stomach started making me nauseous again. I excused myself from the meeting, went to the bathroom, vomitted (in a very professional manner might I add - I didn't get any on me) , rinsed my mouth out, then returned to the meeting, picking up where I left off.

Now I know I wasn't the first one to do something like this, nor will I be the last one to do something like this, but I'm embarrassed just the same. It was the first time it has ever happened to me. Mostly I'm glad that people are a little more relaxed about that kind of thing over here in Ireland. I've seen plenty others come in after hard nights on the town. Now I can sympathize with them. Everybody's human, I'm no exception.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

2010-09-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

Just because I got back late (and I got a request for an update on my reading goals), today you get at Book Report. Stupid Things I've Done will be Friday thing this week. Look for it tomorrow . . .

Some of you may remember that I traveled over to Bristol and Bath a few months ago. On visiting Bath, I learned that the city was once Jane Austen's home and I even visited a Jane Austen Museum. The city was also frequently a setting for Ms. Austen's novels - specifically Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Though I had not read either of those two novels, I had read both Pride & Prejudice and Emma. So while I was at the museum, I thought I'd pick up one of the novels that was based in the city. Opting for the novel written later in her career, I bought a copy of Persuasion.

Reading the novel was a pleasant enough experience. Reading Austen, like reading Shakespeare, takes a little bit of time to get accustomed to. You need to read a few chapters before you get into the language of the era. One thing I can admit was that the book was alive to me. Having just visited the city of Bath, I could easily envision the atmosphere and could picture the places that Austen names in her book. The assembly halls were fresh in my memory and I remember walking The Circus and The Royal Crescent.

Persuasion is quite critical of the Bath aristocracy, painting them as duplicitous and untrustworthy. Simultaneously it idealized the simple values of the country folk. As with the other two novels of Austen's that I have read, the plot focuses on the misunderstanding and miscommunication that occurs between men and women. So it's no surprise that the plot is resolved when the two would-be lovers finally talk frankly to each other instead of relying on their own perceptions and the perceptions of others who might persuade them. Still, a fun read, though.

Since I find it hard to compare Austen to other fiction, I can only compare this work to her others that I've read. I found it more interesting than Emma, but less interesting than Pride and Prejudice.

As far as my 10,000 pages goal, I'm still behind schedule (I have 2 book reports yet to write for you all on other pieces I've completed) but I'm in the neighborhood of 6000 pages with 3 months to go. I better get busy reading!

HRputer is Back!

2010-09-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

So where the hell has HRputer been? Stuck in the mire of a thing called Soft Code Freeze. As you may remember from previous posts, I am working over in Ireland on an SAP implementation. When you're working on a large project like this, they usually have two different kind of code freezes: soft code freeze and a hard code freeze.

A soft code freeze is a point in a software implementation where you restrict all defect resolution to Critical (can't go live without) and High (major deliverable cannot go live) issues. Medium and Low severity issues can no longer be worked on.

A hard code freeze means that all defect resolution and the system goes live as-is. This is done to make sure that there is stability in the product that goes live. Once the system is live, the code freeze is lifted and the system goes into maintenance mode where all defects and issues are dealt with according to a defined maintenance process.

On this project, HR is considered to be an add-on module, so we don't have any defects that qualify as Critical or High severity issues. Thus I spent September 1st through September 21st working constantly to resolve as many issues as possible (Yep, three straight weekends included). We have bargained in a couple of High severity defects since then, but in essence we've built and tested the product that we're delivering. I'm not overly happy with where we are, but I'm a perfectionist when it comes to these things, so my standards may be a bit higher than others'.

So, now that we are just about to a hard code freeze, I have a few moments to spare to get back going on the blog. There are plenty of things that I have to catch everybody up on, including at least one installment of a fan favorite: "Stupid Things I've Done." Look it up on the tags . . . I've done some stupid things.

Remembering 9/11

2010-09-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

We all remember 9/11 in our own way. I remember the events of that day every time I step onto an airplane. Of the many undesirable things that have come with this assignment, frequent air travel is one of them that I like the least.

I don't mind an occassional flight, but when you are flying transatlantic every three weeks, you become very aware of your vulnerability to such events. No matter how often I tell myself that it is an unlikely of an event it is, I still say a prayer when the plane takes off and another one when its landing. Truly it isn't the risk of the event that I fear, but rather the severity of the consequences; the fear that I'd never see my family again.

So on this day of rememberance, I don't pray for the victims, but for the families of the victims. Nine years ago today, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, wives, and husbands were all lost to their families in the tragedy. May God bless them and ease their pain.

The Global Holiday Exchange

2010-09-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

I have been asked by a few Americans what I did for Labor Day this year. The answer is quite simple: I labored.

Things are kind of odd working on an international project. Usually the Irish Holiday calendar takes precedence, but due the vast amount of British on the project, a practice has been put in play that we now refer to as the Global Holiday Exchange. This is how it works:

Typically each country has a public holiday calendar that has anywhere from 7-10 public holidays. When it gets close to an Irish or British holiday, everybody starts to plan their schedules to see which one they'd rather take. The Brits and the Irish will take their own holidays. But, if you're not on either of those holiday calendars, you trade one of your home holidays for a British or Irish holiday. For instance, I traded my Memorial Day holiday this year for what the Irish call their June Bank Holiday.

When the August bank holiday was coming up, I decided to take it instead of Labor Day so I could have an extra day off when my family was here. Or did I trade that one for 4th of July? Perhaps, I should start tracking the holidays that I'm trading . . .

By the way, Happy Belated Labor Day to those back in the States!

Too Busy to Shave

2010-09-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

As we get closer to our go-live. I'm having fun working all weekend. I just got kicked off the system for nightly backups to run, so I'm going to call it a night.

I forgot to bring my razor back from the States with me. So I hadn't shaved all week until tonight. I didn't actually have time to get down to the local drug store to pick up a new razor. Instead, I found a replacement blade for my razor in my suitcase and proceeded to try to shave using that. It took a little longer than usual, but it did the trick.

The adventures of HRputer are getting a little less adventurous. I may sign up for a writing class in Dublin next weekend. If it's scheduled, perhaps it will give me a reason not to work next weekend.

Time for bed.

Never Raise Your Hand at a Comedy Show

2010-09-02T00:26:00.000-07:00

Last night we went out on the town to celebrate two of our team members rolling off the project. We went to a comedy club and when the emcee asked people from out of town to raise their hands, I foolishly did.

Surprisingly (or not) nobody else at the table with me raised their hands thouhg they, too, were all from out of town . Even the other American at the table with me failed to raise her hand. So it was I, the lone (declared) American in the room that received the jibing. Last time I went to the comedy club, I did the same stupid thing. I can't resist; I'm a glutton for punishment.

It was the same emcee and though he didn't remember me, I remembered him well enough to know that not all of his material had changed. He did the same joke about "What the stupidest thing you can convince an American of." Apparently his buddy still holds the title for having convinced a few Americans that they don't have Wednesday in Ireland. There were some new jokes as well and the night was quite entertaining.

So why do I raise my hand when the comedians are looking to make fun of people? I've always subscribed to the theory that if you can't laugh at yourself, you shouldn't laugh at anybody else. Thus, to keep my life full of laughter I will often offer myself as the butt of a joke. So I'll proffer this advice to my readers:

Don't take life too seriously; you'll never get out of it alive, anyway. Go ahead raise your hand.

And the Days Drone On

2010-08-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

I'm certain that I've mentioned it before, but the last time I returned to Ireland after having spent 7-8 weeks with my family, the gravity of the situation hit me hard. Once again, I've found the harsh reality of being away from my family hard to swallow. The recency of events such as holding my son and kissing my wife are still firmly imprinted upon my brain.

Over time, the imprinting will soften. The brief respites back home are hardly enough to renew them. I'll easily lose myself in work and the feelings of closeness to my family that I've enjoyed for the past seven weeks will fade. It's getting old. Let me rephrase: It's getting older.

Yet, the light is at the end of the tunnel. I'll be transitioning off the project over the next 4-5 months. I can't wait.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

2010-08-29T19:48:00.001-07:00

Planning is often thrown to the curbside even though it is the most important part of any project or program. This post (fortunately, or unfortunately) is about how a plan worked (or didn't work) in my fantasy football draft today. It turns out that I planned well, but incompletely.

Today I surprised some of my friends by actually showing up at our fantasy football draft when I was supposed to be logging in remotely from Ireland. In Ireland, I have not had access to any real fantasy football information - plenty of fantasy soccer information, but no fantasy (American) football information. So when I arrived in Chicago with family in tow, I needed to get my hands on a fantasy football magazine post haste. I was able to get one on Saturday and began my preparation with only 24 hours left before the draft.

The nice thing is that I still had enough time to put together a plan for the first four to five rounds, but I was utterly unprepared for the last seven or eight rounds. I executed my plan flawlessly for rounds 1-5 picking up exactly who I wanted to pick up and event got one upgrade because a better player slid to me. Yet, I still left the draft with a so-so feeling because I didn't like what happened after round five. I may have done ok, but it didn't feel good because I didn't have a plan.

I like to think that if I had more time to plan, I would have planned properly for the last seven to eight rounds as well. Instead of shooting from the hip, I could have targeted specific players in specific rounds. In failing to properly plan for the full draft, I now have some work to get my team set for the season. Though I believe that fantasy football is 40% draft and 60% team management. I still have the opportunity to plan for the season (yet still remain flexible enough to pounce on opportunities when they present themselves).

So my little piece of wisdom for everybody today is that proper preparation prevents poor performance. It is easy to do well when you prepare. It's not as easy to do well when you have to wing it. I'm not saying that it's impossible to do well when you wing it, it's just harder.

I'm heading back to Ireland tomorrow night. I love these 3 day turn-arounds on trans-atlantic flights.

For reference, here's my team for 2010 (keeper league):

QB: Carson Palmer
QB: Ben Roethlisberger
RB: Joseph Addai
RB: LeSean McCoy
RB: Ryan Mathews
RB: Darren Sproles
WR: Brandon Marshall
WR: Steve Smith
WR: Terrell Owens
WR: Santonio Holmes
WR: Devin Hester
WR: Jacoby Jones
K: Adam Vinatieri
K: Dan Carpenter
DEF: New Orleans
DEF: Detroit

Dealing with the Pile of Email

2010-08-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

As so often happens, when I got back from vacation I had a pile of email clogging my inbox. I thought that it would be a good idea to share some advice on how to deal with this backlog that is inevitably waiting for us when we return to work. I have become a master of dealing with such situations. Are you ready for this sage advice? Can you handle it? Here you go:

Throw it all out without reading it.

What? I can't be serious can I? I'm deadly serious.

It works because it functions under one important principle: If something is REALLY important, somebody else has kept a copy of it. I learned this lesson from one of the first bosses that I worked for who would routinely throw things out without reading them. When I asked him why did this, he explained: "If it's really important, it will show back up on my desk." . People keep copies of important documents/emails. Don't be a pack rat; let somebody else be a pack rat.

Is this a perfect system? No. It typically fails when you have a boss that likes to make unilateral decisions without your input. You know, when somebody sends out an email (copying you) asking your boss to make a decision on something where they SHOULD wait for your input, but choose not to do so.

So - as with many systems - it's only perfect in a perfect world . . . and we all know that the world isn't perfect. So use the advice at your own risk. Personally, I have my email setup so that my VIP's show up highlighted when the come to my inbox and truthfully, I read the VIP email and then toss the rest.

Hopefully this advice lightens your workload at least a little, or at least helps you cope with the fear of returning from vacation.

Vacation Time!

2010-08-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

It's about freakin' time! Beth, RJ and I are picking up my parents from the airport tomorrow and driving down to Tralee for a week of vacation!

Tralee is in County Kerry in Western Ireland. Even though it does happen to be the city that my company is headquartered in, I plan to do now work (right . . . ) while on vacation. I've done the whirlwind tour of County Kerry over a weekend, but it will be nice to actually spend some time out there instead of racing around the Ring of Kerry and popping my head out of the window every three miles to take a picture of the gorgeous scenery.

We haven't made any plans on what to do yet, but we have a 4 hour drive from Dublin to Tralee to plan our time out there. I look forward to getting away from work and spending time with my family (as work has made that hard, even though they are here).

How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill

2010-08-12T04:51:00.000-07:00

I've often seen this book on the shelves at the book store and have always tempted to buy it. I just never pulled the trigger. Recently, when I was back in the United States (for a weekend), I stepped into the local used book store with my niece and we both walked out with an armful of books (for very little cash). My stack of books included this one by Thomas Cahill.

So how exactly did the Irish save civilization? I'll try to summarize as best I can.

At the point in history when the Holy Roman Empire was collapsing, Ireland was converting to Catholicism under St. Patrick. Ireland's geographic location aided them in their ability to seclude themselves from the barbarians in France and Germany that were one of the causes of the fall of Rome.

As St. Patrick was evangelizing Ireland, a trail of abbeys were left in his wake. These abbeys, protected from the barbarians by geography, were the seeds of civilization that fell from the flower of Rome (which had in turn, preserved civilized thought from Greece). Without these abbeys copying texts and adding their own Irish form (writing down their own oral tradition in the margins) to the newly copied texts, books such as The Bible and Plato's Republic may not have survived. The Book of Kells is the oldest existing copy of The Bible and it sits on display at Trinity College in Dublin. What St. Patrick started and St. Brigit continued in Ireland was passed on for three hundred years and the evangelistic Irish monks reached all the way back to Rome, planting the seeds of civilization along the way.

That is . . . until the Vikings came. The arrival of the Vikings in Ireland began the downfall of the Irish influence on civilization as the bejeweled texts (housed in the abbeys) were highly desired loot by the Viking raiders. Thousands of books were stolen or destroyed as Vikings raided the abbeys along the rocky coasts of Ireland. The Book of Kells survived only by being moved further inland to the city of Kells from whence it receives its name. The Vikings eventially created coastal settlements in Ireland and came to influence the Irish culture in their own fashion, but that - as they say - is a story for a different day.

As for books, I found it very informative and pertinent to all of the Irish monastic sites that I've visited. However, if you didn't find the above intriguing, you can probably do without reading this book. This book gets a 6.5 (out of 10) on the HRputer book rating scale.

Use the Black Pump, You Dolt!

2010-08-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

I had my first mix up with diesel and petrol (gas) yesterday. I put petrol into a diesel van. That's a no-no. Lucky for me, I was still able to drive away from the gas station.

I was on my way back to the rental car agency and needed to just top off the tank. It probably wasn't a good idea to pull into the gas station a 7am, knowing that I needed to have my wits about me to know whether to use the green pump or the black pump. However, I'll maintain that it wasn't my fault. I shouldn't have had to return the rental yesterday. However, the rental car company screwed up my reservation.

I was supposed to have the van for 7 weeks, but the booked for only 4 weeks. So I was returning the van only so I could go across the road and rent a car from their competitors for the remaining 3 weeks. Apparently in Ireland, there's a tax law that states any rental over 28 days is considered a lease. Leases are taxed at a higher rate and the cars have to be specifically classed as "lease" vehicles. So despite the fact that I reserved a van with this company for 7 weeks, they put me in a rental-qualified (not lease-qualified) vehicle. Therefore, I needed to return the van after 4 weeks. Additionally, I couldn't rent another car from them (return one, take out another) because both cars would have to qualify as "lease" vehicles. If either one is a "rental" I was screwed. The only one they had available for me was a "rental," so I was screwed. Thus I reiterate, it was their own damn fault . . . OK, not really. I was half-awake, uncaffeined and perturbed that I had to return the car. Yet, I was still a dumbass.

The funny thing is that I didn't even realize that I had made the mistake until 8 hours later. I slowly remembered over the course of the day that I used petrol, not diesel. My inner monologue went something like this: "Did I use diesel? Yeah, I think I did. But it WAS making some odd noises. Perhaps I didn't use diesel. But I thought that if you used petrol in a diesel car it wouldn't start? Maybe since I just topped off, it was still diesel-ly enough to start and drive, but gas-y enough to cause the odd rattling sounds. Hmmmm . . . I think I used gas."

My next inner monologue was about what to do: "Perhaps they won't notice? But what about the next renters will they have an issue? How much will this cost me? Shit It's gonna cost me, but I need to tell them." So I called them.

Them: "Hello, __________ rental cars."
Me: "Yeah, I returned a car today and . . . . uhhhh . . . I think I filled it with petrol . . . ."
Them: "The ____________"
Me: "Yeah."
Them: "Yes, you filled with petrol. We're draining the tank now."
Me: "Sorry about that."

They seemed pretty cool about it, but being cool about it doesn't translate into "No charge, sir." I figure I owe them at least a tank of gas - even at exhorbinant car rental agency prices.

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

2010-08-09T05:26:00.000-07:00

A Clash of Kings is the second book in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. You may remember that I raved about the first book of the series: A Game of Thrones. This book was equally well written and the characters still intrigue the reader. However, I found that outside of progressing characters through their story lines, the plot was a little lacking.

As I've pointed out before, I'm not a fan of shifting viewpoints. I was not overly offended by the shifting viewpoints in the previous book, but in this book, it got under my skin. We lost a viewpoint from the previous book, so Martin felt he needed to add another viewpoint to the story - that of Theon Greyjoy. Theon's viewpoint appears to be unneeded, but we'll see what happens in Book 3. He could factor in quite considerably.

I also have a hard time reading chapters about Danaerys Targaryen. Through two books her viewpoint has been present, but her story lies so far removed from the other viewpoints that I struggle with understanding the value of her story. I can tell that eventually she'll have a larger part to play in the main plot, but I'm getting impatient as I've read 1800 pages of this saga and she hasn't.

Jon Snow's story, however, progressed well and culminated to an excellent climax. I am still anxious to start the third book (mostly to find out what happens to Jon Snow and Arya Stark), but I really hope that Martin starts to pull everything together. I felt that this particular book was 1000 pages of bridgework between major occurrences. The feud between the Baratheon brothers just didn't interest me as much because they were minor characters in the previous book.

This book gets an 8 (out of 10) on the HRputer book rating scale, falling a little behind Book 1 (which scored a perfect 10).

Working Like A Dog

2010-08-05T04:55:00.000-07:00

Where did that phrase come from? I've rarely seen a dog work (dog sleds and seeing-eye dogs being the exceptions). Mostly, they just eat, sleep and evacuate.

Anyhow, our Project Team Leaders (which I'm a member of) agreed to have on-site Fridays. This doesn't affect me much, but it affects my work team. The on-site Fridays isn't too bad of a concept - it promotes cross-team working and keeps our team members productive on Fridays. The problem that I have with it is the enforcement of a 4pm end time on Fridays.

Though this doesn't affect me (I stay the whole day on Fridays because I'm "local"), it does affect some of my team members. I'm not too concerned about the ones that I suspect are less productive on Fridays. However, I know that I have a few team members that bust their butts when they are off-site and the only flights available to them are at 3:30pm. Their next available flight isn't until 9pm. Getting home at midnight on a Friday isn't a good way to reward your good workers. It's punishing all employees for the sins of the few.

The truth is that on a project of this size, you get plenty of productive people and a few unproductive people. The unproductive people need get their rears in gear or get off the project. Their manager needs to address the issue early and curb the behavior. If they don't, they end up in the situation that we're in now, punishing the whole for the sins of the few.

The last company I worked at put a policy in place that said that all Exempt employees needed to work 50 hour weeks. The reason for this policy was to address issues with a few employees who would show up at 10am, go to lunch at 11am, then leave work at 2pm and go to a Cubs game. All the policy did was piss off the people who were busting their butts. In other words the overachievers were being punished because some managers didn't have the backbone to tell their employees to work a decent working day.

That's what I'd call making your employees work like dogs, except dogs occassionally get a biscuit when they've done a good job. If we're going to ask our employees to work a little harder perhaps we should find a few more biscuits to hand out.

Criticism

2010-07-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

I found myself making small talk with a couple of Northern Irish and Germans yesterday amidst the project. What is surprising is that I found myself more critical of the United States than I usually am. Was I providing accurate criticism of my home country from a different viewpoint than them? Or, was I trying to "fit-in" by presenting criticisms that I thought they would agree with? Probably a little of both. My question to myself is: why?

I've found that the general stereotype of Americans (amongst Europeans that I work with) pictures us as ignorant, arrogant, and bullish. That is: we don't know much about the world outside the United States, yet we believe our culture is the greatest in the world, and we try to impose it upon others. I first recognized where this stereotype when I overheard an American wondering about why, when an Irish colleague called in sick, he kept explaining that he had a doctor's certification. The American colleague's response was "What? Is he afraid somebody might think he's faking it?" The truth is, getting a doctor's note is common practice here, regardless of the number of days you're off. Instead of mocking his Irish colleague, he might have been better served to understand the culture before making a joke about it. (Though a good jibe IS part of the culture over here, perhaps that was just a bad attempt at humor).

I've always been one to try to understand people. To do so, I'll often try to build repoire by trying to find something in common with others. When you're standing amongst a group of Northern Irish and Germans, there isn't much that you can find in the way of common ground for people to talk about. Once you get past the weather reports, you have to reach for something. I'd like to think that my mockery of our country's media and of our education system was just a way creating subjects for a diverse crowd of people to talk about.

Being a very talkative folk (another stereotype), the Northern Irish volunteered their own stereotypes (car bombs and civil unrest - yikes!) and the Germans remained silent and granite-faced (yet another stereotype). Though I know the Northern Irish can become just as granite-faced as the Germans and the Germans can be just as talkative as the Northern Irish.

So, I guess that I've answered my question. I was trying to get people to open up and talk. If I was overly critical of my home country, I apologize. I didn't really mean it. I was just trying to find common ground for some Germans and Northern Irish (who had never met) to talk about.

RJ Visits the Castle

2010-07-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Today we took RJ out to see Trim Castle. This castle was featured in the movie Braveheart. You might remember it from the scenes where William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson, gets hung drawn and quartered by the English. What we found was that a 3-story castle presented little room for RJ to (safely) run around. Did I mention that RJ loves to run? He loves to run. He needed his "Freedom!" (the quote is to be read with a bad Mel Gibson Scottish accent).

Since I had been on the tour before, I let Beth continue on the tour and I exited with RJ before we even got off the first level of the castle. RJ had plenty of fun running around the castle grounds. As I have probably mentioned before, RJ likes to run down hills more than he likes to run up hills. Thus we ended up spending most of our time on the river-side of the castle as opposed to the curtain wall side of the castle.

We ended the day with Spaghetti Night in Navan. As you can see, RJ likes spaghetti. He even finds that it's in fashion to wear his spaghetti.

Navan House

2010-07-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

We've now been settled into our new abode for about a week and the verdict is in. I've gotten two thumbs up from my wife and a plethora of dolphin chirps from RJ. I did well this time.

As with my last experience securing Irish housing, this one was fraught with many stumbling blocks. Having been through the experience once already though, I was much better prepared to take on the challenge.

Our home-for-a-month has 4 bedrooms, has a garden in back (see picture below), and is well decorated. On top of that, it is actually cheaper than my apartment on the North side of Dublin (I still have to pay rent there, too). However, it is a 30-40 minute drive to work in the morning. I can't complain, though. At home, my commute is one hour each way. I'vegotten spoiled the last few months with my Dublin apartment being a 5-minute walk to work.

So now I get to see my family for 7 weeks straight. What a concept! I love getting home and spending time with Beth and RJ. We put RJ to bed a little later because the sun sets at 10pm. He doesn't like to go to bed when it's still light out (yet he has no problem sleeping-in in the morning).

Mostly, I'm glad that this time I got the dwelling space right. My apartment isn't a good fit for a family of three (or two even). I guess there's hope for me yet.

Outside the Signal

2010-07-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a hectic week getting the family settled in our temporary abode for the next month. We've rented a flat (townhouse in American lingo) about a half hour northwest of Dublin. So far, so good. Beth is much happier with this choice than my choice regarding apartments. Granted, I still have the apartment, too, but use it mostlly as a place to keep my work clothes. I drive in, park the car in my apartment parking space, change into my suit, then walk over to the hotel where I'm working.

Unfortunately, I'm outside of the wireless signals that I'm accustomed to and thus may not have much time over the next month to update. I'll try to keep up to speed by doing 3-4 blogs a week. We bought Beth a wireless internet connection (and local cell phone) on a pay-as-you-go basis and should be able to write the blogs up on my computer, then post them from hers. Or I might write them up at night, then post them from work first thing in the morning. Either way, it's not as easy for me to post as it was before.

This past weekend RJ and I had a Daddy-Son Day and drove up to Kingscourt (County Cavan). I forgot my camera, so you get no pictures. It is a nice little town that has a Nature Preserve nearby. The Nature Preserve is beautiful, but it was not made for strollers and 17-month olds. Lots of hills and rocky paths. I did get some good exercise pushing the stroller up steep grade paths, but RJ didn't get as much exercise as I did. The paths were narrow and careened into a river valley below. I thought it best not to let him run loose. The few places where RJ could get out and run around were still hilly. He's mastered running down hill, but not up hill. So, no matter where I parked the stroller, as he ran we kept getting further away from it.

The Heart of Darkness and Other Stories by Joseph Conrad

2010-07-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

Beth and I traveled back to Ireland today with RJ in tow. My brain isn't working quite yet so I doubt that I'll say anything profound about this book that I finished a couple of weeks ago. Joseph Conrad's novella "The Heart of Darkness" was a hard book for me to get through.

I found the frame narrative style quite difficult to read. The point of view is of somebody being told a story to, but the entire novella is essentially in quotes, dictated by the main character, Marlow. Still the story is good. Good enough for Francis Ford Coppola to make it into a film (though the time and location were changed). You might have heard of the movie: Apocalypse Now.

The story deals with a character, Kurtz, who develops a god-complex ruling over local tribesmen in the heart of the dark continent, Congo. In the beginning of the story, Kurtz is held in high esteem by Marlow, but as Marlow uncovers the mysteries surrounding Kurtz, he discovers Kurtz's heart of darkness and the evil that he commits to obtain ivory.

Good story, hard narrative style. I don't know if I need to recommend this book. I'll be checking out Apocalypse Now to see how the story was adapted and perhaps I will recommend the movie to you instead.

As far as my 10,000 pages goal is concerned, I am about 600 pages behind at halfway through the year. So I'm on target to hit about 9,000 pages unless I pick up the pace. The next book I'll be reading is the 1000 page monster sequel to A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, so I expect to catch up quickly.

Four More Paws in Heaven

2010-07-11T04:56:00.000-07:00

R.I.P. Montana.

Trips to Ireland for my family have brought sad tidings. Last time they came back to Ireland we had to put Kiowa down. This time we had to put Montana down. Lung Cancer.

This picture is one of my favorite memories of her. I don't remember exactly how she ended up with the underwear stuck in her collar, but I do remember her running around for about 15 minutes trying to get it unstuck.

Many days have come and gone.
Running 'round the fresh cut lawn.
But all we can now is look back
Remember paws go clickity clack
On the tile or hardwood floors.
Knowing those days will be no more.
Because there are four more paws in heaven.

Goodbye Montana, we'll miss you.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

2010-07-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to read another classic. This one by Herman Hesse. Before I start into my understanding of the book, I will preface it with a quote taken directly from the book: "What is a treasure and wisdom to one man always sounds like utter foolishness to another."

Although this isn't one of the best books that I have ever read, it is one of the most profound books that I have ever read. This is another easy read you can probably go through in a night and the nuggets of wisdom that you will find between the covers is absolutely amazing. To quote just a few:

"Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal."

"Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better."

"If a person has nothing to eat, fasting is the most prudent course. If, for example, Siddhartha had not learned how to fast, to day he would have had to accept some kind of-any kind of-employment, whether with or somewhere else, because hunger would have driven him to it. But as it is Siddhartha can wait calmly, he knows no impatience, he knows no distress, he can let hunger besiege him for a long time and laugh as well. For that reason, Sir, fasting is good."

Throughout the book, you follow Siddhartha on his path to self discovery. Some of the things that he discovers about himself are sad like the realization that people like him cannot love. Love is the blessing of the "child people" as he calls them.

This is a book that I will read again.

The Castles, The Wall and the Angel (Part 2)

2010-07-08T14:07:00.003-07:00

After taking the not-so-quiet approach to leaving the Newcastle University dorms, I hopped in the car and headed for Hadrian's Wall. I needed to exit the A1 at A69 going west. Unfortunately, I couldn't, because this bastard shot a police officer at that junction only 6 hours before. I did eventually find a way around and got on the A69, but it's not fun when you're lost and there's a gunman on the loose who was known to be in the area only six hours earlier.

Hadrian's Wall was not what I pictured it would be. Most of the wall has collapsed and where it is standing it is rare for the structure to be over three feet high (having collapsed down to it's base). Yet, it was still impressive, especially when you consider the terrain that it was built on. Though the prevailing rumor is that the Romans built Hadrian's Wall to keep out the wild Scots, that's only partially true. It actually acted as a border control to limit the number of people coming into England from Scotland . . . especially those that didn't have their green cards. ;)

To bring my trip to Newcastle and Northumbria to conclusion, I had to go see the iron icon of the area that is The Angel of the North. This piece of artwork was built by Antony Gormley in 1998. It welcomes all the visitors to the North that drive past it on the A1 . . . or if you live up North it welcomes you home. It is a most impressive structure. The wingspan is the same as that of a jumbo jet. You can see the scale in the picture below (a photographer in the bottom right and a person standing up next to the sculpture).

One more drive past the A1/A69 intersection (which was now open to traffic) and I was back at the airport. After a long week of work, it will be nice to fly home tomorrow and see my wife and son.

Incidentally the picture at the head of the post is the "new castle" that Newcastle Upon Tyne is named for. Not quite as impressive as the others.

The Castles, The Wall and The Angel (Part 1)

2010-07-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

If you want to see some freakin' cool castles, go to Northumbria, England. There are other things to see like Hadrian's Wall and The Angel of the North, both worth seeing, but the castles were absolutely phenomenal. Last weekend, I flew over to Newcastle Upon Tyne and had an interesting weekend, which included avoiding a disgruntled convict with a gun.

On Saturday, I did the all-castles-all-the-time tour of Northumbria. The first castle that I saw was on Holy Island, Lindisfarne Castle. Holy Island is an island that you can drive to at low tide. A causeway opens up, just don't get caught trying to drive across when the tide is coming in.

The town was neat and I would have liked to stay a little longer, but I had a tonne (that's the British spelling) of castles to see and only one day to do it! Here is Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island:

Next it was down the coast toTHE most amazing castle that I have seen to date: Bamburgh Castle. This one deserves two pictures.

From the park:
From the beach:

And, although I have many other pictures of castles, I cut it off after this one as it's a good one to end on. This is Alnwick Castle, but you might know by it's other name: Hogwarts. This castle was the featured backdrop for Harry Potter as Hogwarts in three of the six films already released.

After my tour of the castles of Northumbria, I toured the cities of Newcastle Upon Tyne and Tynemouth. There really isn't anything spectacular about the city other than it attracts stag parties and hen parties from all over the United Kingdom and Ireland. For your reference stag party = bachelor party, hen party = bachellorette party.

I found cheap accommodation staying in a dormitory at the University of Newcastle. I'm such an old fart. I was in bed by 10pm. I first woke when the loud and raucous stag parties returned from the pubs (obviously of the same mind for cheap accommodations) at 2:30 am. I next awoke to my alarm and to extract my revenge, being loud (though not raucous) at 6am when I got up to start my Sunday adventures.

To be continued . . .

More Good Music

2010-07-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

In my foray over to the landladies' house for tea yesterday, I discovered another good Irish music act. How did I discover it? It was playing on the radio at their house. In fact, it was one the ladies' son: Simon Fagan.

Check out the link here. If you sign up to his mailing list, you can get a free EP.

http://www.simonfagan.net/

Irish Hospitality

2010-07-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

Since my apartment in Ireland is unacceptable to my wife (it is small and falling apart), I've been hunting for a place for us to stay when she comes over in a couple of weeks. I had found a place up in Navan that seemed pretty decent, but the people who were renting it out seemed a little dodgy. So I went up to Navan to get everything straightened out.

I have spent a couple of weekends looking and finally settled on the place earlier this week. I called up one of the ladies that was renting the place (two sisters rent it out) and I agreed on 750 Euro for the month that we'll be staying there. As I was confirming the price and the dates via email, I got a text that it was actually 800 Euro for the month. Dodgy. I didn't see the text until after I'd sent off the email, so I waited to see what the response was be email.

This morning I got an email back from them confirming the 800 Euro and a different address than the one that I saw. Dodgy. So I called them back and she laughed when she realized that she gave the wrong address (her address, not the rental address, which happens to be on the same street). Then I asked about the 800 Euro and it was explained to me that this was the price that I was presented when I saw the place two weeks ago. It could be, but I don't remember. Under the guise of going up to pay the deposit, I decided that I wanted to go up and meet these people, because I wasn't sure that I trusted them. If it still felt dodgy after meeting them, I would have left without paying the deposit.

After meeting the two sisters for half an hour, I decided to pay the deposit. Half an hour later, I was invited over to their other house for tea. Two other sisters joined us there and the hospitality was wonderful. Very nice ladies. It turns out that their family owned all the property that the subdivision was built on, so they have a couple of houses in the subdivision. One of them owns a golf course and offered up a free round of golf. They even offered to lend us their SatNav while we were renting from them. Good people, great hospitality!

Co. Cavan: The Life of Reilly

2010-06-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

Along with County Leitrim, County Cavan is part of the medieval kingdom of Breifne and was ruled by the Ui Raghallach clan, commonly known/pronounced in English as O'Reilly. The O'Reilly's ruled out of Cavan and were in constant competition with the O'Rourkes who ruled over County Leitrim to the west (also part of the kingdom of Breifne). The O'Reilly's did so well for themselves that the term "Living the Life of Reilly" was born . . . or so claims the museum in Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan.

Though there isn't much to do in County Cavan, I found the aforementioned museum quite informative, as well as affordable. For three Euro you learn quite a bit about the county. For instance, prior to the potato blight (circa 1847) the county had about 250,000 residents. When the blight was over, the numbers were reduced to around 170,000 people. Today, there are just over 50,000 residents and boasts to be the most sparsely populated county on the island. This was mostly due to economic reasons. Thus, living the life of Reilly is no longer as lavish as it once was.

The above picture is from the museum as well. It is known as the Corleck Head - a stone carved with three different faces one on each side. As the exhibit rotates the stone, you can see the distinctly different expressions on each of the faces. The meaning and use of the object is unknown, but reinforces the Celtic belief in the power of the number 3.

Finally, I discovered that County Cavan is the home of Edgar Allen Poe's ancestors which emigrated to the United States in the mid 1700's. The ancestral home is at Kildallon, Killeshandra, County Cavan. I did not drive out to visit it. As far as I know it's not open to the public.

So, though I wouldn't place County Cavan high on my recommendations list, if you're in the area (or if you're an O'Reilly) I'd definitely stop by Ballyjamesduff and visit the museum.

County Monaghan

2010-06-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

In my quest to do something "touristy" in every county of Ireland. I hit two counties this weekend: County Cavan and County Monaghan. These counties constituted a small detour from my house-hunting efforts (trying to find a place to rent for a month that's a little bigger for when Beth and RJ next come over) in County Meath. Both counties are north of Meath in the Province of Ulster, though still part of the Republic of Ireland (most of Ulster is part of Northern Ireland).

I had a hard time finding something touristy to do in County Monaghan as there really isn't much to do there. I settled on driving up to the village of Tydavnet, just north of Monaghan town. Why Tydavnet? Because there is a story there and I love stories. This story is about St. Dymphna.

St. Dymphna's father was King Damon who, when his wife died, looked long and hard for a replacement that was as beautiful and virtuous. It turns out Dymphna, his teenage daughter, possessed all those characteristics that the king found beautiful in his wife. Damon made sexual advances at his daughter, who then fled her incestuous father and ended up in Gheel, Belgium. Unfortunately King Damon tracked her down and when she did not return to Ireland with him, he had her beheaded.

St. Dymphna is the patron saint of those who suffer from mental illness, nervous system disorders, epileptics, mental health professionals, incest victims and runaways.

In Irish her name is Davnet, hence the village named Tydavnet is named in her honor. The parish there is also named after her. The picture that I've posted is of a old celtic cross in a cemetery that also bears her name.

I also tried to get out to her shrine a few miles outside of Tydavnet, however, the directions were hard to follow and I ended up driving around rural Monaghan for about an hour. By the time I arrived at Dympna's Well, it seemed to be closed. I did glimpse it from a neighboring hillside (while lost), but didn't get any good pictures.

Later that evening, I got tossed out of a pub in Monaghan town for bringing my take-out food inside. All I wanted to do was to have a meal, a pint and watch the US World Cup match. The bouncer, however, thought that since they had a restaurant upstairs, I shouldn't bring in my own food. After telling him I would have ate at their restaurant if they would have showed the match on TV, he proceeded to tell me to take my food elsewhere.

As you can see, there really wasn't much to do in County Monaghan. It is a beautiful county to drive through, with rolling green hills, but I wouldn't advise stopping. So far county Monaghan has been my least favorite county, mostly due to the fact that I got tossed out of a pub for wanting to eat and watch a sporting event. Apparently they don't have the concept of "Sports Bars" over here.

Soccer Done for Four Years?

2010-06-27T03:56:00.000-07:00

After pulling off an amazing win on Wednesday night to win their group, the US Men's Soccer team looked pretty bad against Ghana in the first match of the elimination round. They managed to send the game to extra time, but an early goal by Ghana's Asamoah Gyan sent the Stars & Stripes home. It was a proud day for Ghana, who is the last African team left in the competition.

It was quite apparent that Ghana was the better team on the field. Their passes were quick and accurate; their ball control was better than their opponents; and their keeper had a better day. I can't take anything away from the US, though. The Stars & Stripes, though looking outclassed on the field, created more shots on goal than Ghana and more legitimate scoring chances. The difference was that Ghana's keeper, Richard Kingson, was an impenetrable wall that stopped at least three would-be goals. The only goal the US scored was from the penalty spot. That was not enough to win.

So now that the US has had it's World Cup bubble burst, what now? Is soccer over in the US for another four years? I've heard a few Americans make such a comment. I wanted to criticize, but I would be a hypocrite. I haven't watched US soccer since the last World Cup in 2006 (we had a much better show from our team this year). The MLS is still playing, but the level of competition isn't up to what I've seen on this side of the pond. In fact, the good US players are likely not even playing in the MLS.

I think that the sad truth is that the US just doesn't care about soccer unless it's the World Cup. Even then, I don't think the US cares too much. Admittedly, I love my (American) football. I find the sport much more entertaining. So what would make soccer more entertaining? My thought is to get rid of the offside penalty or to alter it in such a way that more goals would scored. I favor a rule more like hockey's where once the you are onside in the attacking zone, anything goes. How would you make soccer more entertaining?

24 Hours in Bavaria

2010-06-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

I just returned from my whirlwind trip to Bavaria (Germany). I flew into Frankfurt airport, then traveled south to visit one of our project pilot sites in Kleinheubach. I would have liked to stay a little longer and gotten up to visit some relatives, but I needed to be back in Dublin on Thursday. I was in Germany for one night and one day. In that short period of time, here's what I learned:

1. I don't like the Autobahn. A flock of coworkers and I (eight of us in total) were driven in a van from the Frankfurt airport down to Miltenberg (where we stayed the night). To be honest, I'm not quite sure if it we officially took the Autobahn, but there were vast sections of motorway that had no posted speed limits. Our top speed was 180 kph (roughly 110 mph). It wasn't the speed that frightened me so much as the rate at which we'd overtake trucks. I love roller coasters and driving fast, but I did not feel secure, nor did I feel in control of the situation. I usually say a prayer when taking off an landing in airplanes, but this experience had me appealing to the almighty at constant intervals throughout the trip.

2. I like German bier. We ate dinner at a restaurant in Miltenberg that served a local bier called Faust. It was gut, ja.

3. Mmmm . . . red cabbage. Although it isn't quite as good as my grandmother makes it, it was quite delicious at the restaurant we where ate.

4. We make tons of bread crumbs. Literally. Our plant in Kleinheubach makes 150 varieties of bread crumb. It's sister plant closer to Berlin makes another 150 varieties. The most impressive site, though was the 1 ton bag of bread crumbs sitting in the storeroom - one of our packaging options. If you don't like 1 ton bags, you can always pull your truck up under our bread crumb silo and we can dump a few tons into it.

5. The bread crumbs we make are colored by Tumeric and Paprika. If you want a yellow bread crumb, it's colored with Tumeric. If you want a red bread crumb, it's colored with paprika. If you want a white bread crumb, no additives are needed (or kneaded - yuk, yuk).

I'm hoping to get a few more days in Germany in the future, perhaps a weekend or more. But for now, I'll just have to reflect fondly on my 24 hours in Bavaria.

A Fish Out of Water

2010-06-22T03:38:00.000-07:00

I got an unexpected surprise today when I checked in for my Aer Lingus flight: Free Business Class Upgrade. Score!

This was my first visit to the highfalutin' business class and I didn't know exactly what the prevailing ettiquette would be. All I knew was I would be getting a seat that reclined far enough back that you could actually get some serious sleep on the overnight flight. So here's what I learned:

1. Hot Towels - I'm not sure if it's the same on all airlines, but Aer Lingus provided a pre-dinner hot towel and a post-breakfast hot towel. I don't know what it is about hot towels, but they're nice.

2. Free Drinks - When I first boarded, I was offered my choice of champaigne, orange juice, or ice water. I wasn't sure at the time if the drinks were free, so I took the OJ, because I knew that it is free back in coach. Later, however, I put the free wine to the test and had a couple of glasses of a Spanish white wine with my meal.

3. Real Plates/Silverware - None of this plastic junk. The glasses were glass. The silverware was stainless steel. The plates were ceramic.

4. Super Recline-O Chairs - I was not disappointed. The reclining chairs were wonderful for sleeping. Don't get me wrong, this isn't Serta or Simmons comfort, but leagues beyond the chairs that recline one inch back in coach.

5. Better meals - Though these meals won't be served at 5-star restaurants, once again it's a considerable upgrade from coach.

6. Separate Baggage Claim - Your bags come off first and go to a separate baggage claim so it's easy to find your bag. Unfortunately, I did not realize this and sat at the regular baggage claim for half an hour before going to the baggage assistance desk. There they pointed me to the right place to pick up my big. Low and behold it was sitting there all by itself.

Thus were my adventures in Business Class. I hope that I get the privelege of riding there again. If you've flown Business Class, what's your favorite feature? If you haven't flown Business Class, what do you utterly hate about flying coach?

Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin

2010-06-21T03:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a book doesn't need to teach you something new for it to be worth reading. Sometimes it just needs to remind you of what you already know. This is one of those books. If you'd like to learn everything that you already know about Marketing, this book is for you. However, it's hard to be critical of a book that I pulled out of the dollar bin at Borders. I mean, what could I possibly expect for a dollar?

So here's the advice that this book gives:

1. Don't develop something new, rather develop a marketable improvement to something that's already a viable product (a "soft innovation" as he calls it). Developing something new costs a lot of money and the return on investment is often watered down by the fact that you've invested a bunch of money into it. If you remember getting the "free prize inside" in boxes of cereal, that's exactly what he's talking about. The cereal companies didn't fundamentally change the product they were selling, they just gave their consumers a free prize that made the whole package more marketable.

2. Godin also preaches how throwing large sums of advertising dollars into advertising campaigns is no longer a viable marketing scheme. "Interruptions" happen far too frequently today for it to create a lasting impression, or any impression at all. So instead of paying for advertising, give the customer a "free prize." Example: Amazon.com, stopped advertising and put it's advertising budget into their free shipping program. Result: 37% increase in sales. Add value to your customer and you get returns. If your addition does not add value to the customer, it will not give you returns. If you've done your job right, your customer will sell your product for you.

3. Lastly, he gives some ideas on how to champion an idea through the company. In essence, it's an internal marketing scheme that creates a buzz about the soft innovation that you've created. You need to create support for your ideas if you're going to get them implemented. Turns out, the easiest way to do that is to talk to people about it. Go figure.

So as you can see, nothing mind-blowing. Interesting in some respect. A quick read. Well worth the $1 I paid for it. Not worth the $19.99 that it originally listed for.

Another Gift from England

2010-06-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

Today, the USA Men's Soccer team almost blew their World Cup run. The got down two goals early in their match against Slovenia. After halftime, however, the Stars & Stripes rallied to tie the match. This was a little bit of a let down . . .

In the same way that English fans were let down with a tie to the USA last Saturday, we were let down today. We should have beaten Slovenia. However, hats off to the Slovenian club. They played a hell of a game. Luckily, USA was resilient and managed to draw after scoring two second half goals. The coach's son, Michael Bradley scored an 82nd minute equalizer to force the draw. The boys almost won 3 minutes later, but Maurice Edu's goal was disallowed.

The stage was set for England to take control of Group C with a win against Algeria. England did not manage to score a goal and drew against Algeria, keeping the US in a good position to make it through to the elimination round. This was a gift. I don't think anybody expected Algeria to do so well against England.

So now, with one game to go, Slovenia tops the group with 4 points, USA is in second with 2 points, England has third with 2 points and Algeria sits at the bottom with 1 point. Next Wednesday, USA plays Algeria and England plays Slovenia at the exact same time.

USA makes it through to the next round if they win. If they draw against Algeria, they will need a Slovenia win (or low-scoring draw). USA can still win the group if they win with a larger goal differential than England winning over Slovenia.

Good luck, boys!

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

2010-06-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die."

Even though George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones is 800 pages long, it is easily the best book that I've read in the past year. Even though I haven't read too many great books in the last year, that list does include: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agathe Christie, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.

Martin's style (constantly shifting viewpoints between characters) helps to create believable, fallible characters. I usually don't like when the viewpoint shifts so much, but Martin uses it in such a masterful way that I didn't mind. Specifically, since there is no "central" character, their is no contract with the reader that the main character will succeed/escape in the end. In other words, anything can happen to any character at any time.

One of the most annoying things to Martin's readers is that the series isn't complete. I'm itching to get started on A Clash of Kings, which is the sequel, but I'm apprehensive. Martin has completed 4 of the 7 books that he intends for the series, but the last one, A Feast for Crows (Book 4), was published in 2005. Book 5 is being worked on, but has been 5 years in the making so far.

What's taking up his time? Could be the HBO series that is based on A Game of Thrones that is being cast and written, due to air in 2011, starring Sean Bean (who played Boromir in Peter Jackson's movie of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring.

I have decided to take it slow, to hopefully give Martin a chance to complete his fifth book, but I'm sure my patience won't last too long. If you like Fantasy/SciFi, you have to read this book. Hell, if you like good books, you should read this book.

Meet Joe Bloggs

2010-06-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

You may know him as John Doe or John Q. Public, however over here his name is Joe Bloggs. He has a brother, Fred Bloggs and together they fill the role of placeholder names in England and Australia - specifically in teaching programs.

I discovered this as I was reviewing training materials for our SAP project where I kept running into Joe as a fake employee. At first I didn't get it, but after seeing his name show up repeatedly, I started to understand what was going on. I asked a colleague of mine if there was any particular origin to the name Joe Bloggs, but she had no idea. Do you know the origin of John Doe? No? Neither do I.

When looking it up on Wikipedia I found that there were many examples of placeholder names. The world is full of them. The most infamous of them seems to be Jane Roe as in Roe v. Wade. Others include: Richard Roe, Jane Doe, Mary Major, Richard Miles, John Stiles, John Smith, Joe Blow, Joe Schmoe, Max Mustermann (Germany), Erika Mustermann (Germany), Felix Muster (Switzerland), Maria Bernasconi (Switzerland), Mario Rossi (Italy), Peder Ås (Norway), Kari Holm (Norway), Anna Malli (Finland - Anna Malli translates literally to "Anna the Model"; does this give further depth to the Incubus song?), Seán Ó Rudaí (Translates to Sean O'Something), Juan Perez (South America) and Medel Svensson (Sweden).

There are plenty more where that came from, but I don't have the patience to list them all; nor do I suspect you have the patience to read. I hope you enjoyed your short lesson on the many variants of placeholder names. Any favorites that I haven't listed?

It's Just a Game

2010-06-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

The USA Men's soccer team drew 1-1 against England yesterday, much to the chagrin of England fans across the globe. The Three Lions came out strong against the Stars & Stripes, putting the Americans down 1-0 in the fourth minute. However, Steven Garrard's goal would not be the focus for discussion when the match was over.

Later in the half, USA's Clint Dempsey put a shot on goal that slipped through the England keeper's hands and rolled slowly over the line. The equalizer was the focus of sports writer's and analysts as that was the end of the scoring in the game. Robert Green, keeper for the English side, stood up and took responsibility for his mistake, yet he still suffers the wrath of the whole of England.

I understand that the harassment and verbal abuse of players on the field is part of the game - it's part of home field advantage. But when that harassment follows the players off the field, that's when it becomes a problem. How far will it go? Let's not forget Andrés Escobar, a Columbian soccer player, who was murdered after the 1994 World Cup where he accidentally scored an own-goal (scored against his own team). The gunman shouted "Goal!" each of the twelve times he pulled the trigger. I don't propose that Green's life is endanger, however, he'll be heckled by English football fans for the rest of his life.

If you think that we Americans are any better, look at how Cubs fans treated Steve Bartman after his attempted catch of a foul ball got in the way of Moises Alou trying to catch it during the 2003 National League Championship Series . They drove him out of town. In fact, it was Cubs fans treatment of Bartman that led me to abandon my loyalties to the Cubs and become a White Sox fan.

As my wife reminded me when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, "It's just a game." That's the truth. I know that most people aren't as fanatical Escobar's shooter and not all Cubs fans crucified Steve Bartman, but its sad that these things still happen. I hope for Robert Green's sake that English supporters can remember that it's just a game. Lord knows that it's enough of a burden to bear that he screwed up, he doesn't need his country piling on.

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

2010-06-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of the term "Machiavellian?" Most likely you have and it was used to describe somebody dispensing cruelty to achieve power. It's used quite pejoratively. But what exactly does it mean to be Machiavellian? Inquiring minds want to know. I wanted to know. So I picked up the piece of literature responsible for the creation of the term: Niccolo Machiavelli's Il Principe (or The Prince as it's know in English).

Merriam-webster.com defines Machiavellian as "suggesting the principles of conduct laid down by Machiavelli; specifically : marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith." So, why would I want to know about cunning, duplicity and bad faith? To guard against it, of course.

I've come to a point in my career where I can see office politics making and breaking peoples careers within my company. Truthfully, I hate office politics. OK - I hate all politics. Since I have such a dislike of the subject, I have not spent much time learning about it. Yet I now have a family that relies solely on me to be the bread-winner. I need to make sure that I can continue to win bread. Thus, I set out to read Machiavelli's book.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed it. I honestly thought that it would tell me that to get ahead in this world, I would need to lie, cheat, and steal. I'm not down with that. Granted, there are passages in the text that blatantly tell you things like "Men ought to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones, they cannot." However, you begin to realize that a lot of the advice is based on how a "prince" achieved power: By one's own arms and achievements, by the arms or good fortunes of others, or by wickedness.

Thus I realized that wickedness is not the only path to power. In fact, Machiavelli states: "Those who by valorous ways become Princes . . . acquire a principality with difficulty, but keep it with ease." I think that I like that approach better. There is a lot of wisdom in this book, however, to examine it all would mean to write a book longer than Machiavelli's book itself. Pick it up. Give it a read - it's a short book.

For me, the book helped me to recognize political maneuvering when I see it. It has also helped me understand how to defend myself from the politically ambitious. I have not really decided if I truly want to achieve power within my organization. Right now, I'm happy just winning bread to provide for my family and hoping to get to a point where I can return home and be the father and husband I truly want to be.

One last interesting point: this book was written almost 500 years ago and it still rings with truth today.

One Cup Down, One To Go!

2010-06-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

The Chicago Blackhawks finished off the Philadelphia Flyers last night to win the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals. Go Blackhawks! It was a hell of an effort, although a climactic/anticlimactic overtime goal to win it in overtime. Credit to the Flyers. They are a hell of a team. I won't soon forget names like Hartnell, Richards, Pronger or Briere. More credit to the Blackhawks for pulling through. Names like Toews, Kane, Niemi, Keith, and Bfyuglien will live in my memories even longer.

Now, however, it's time to refocus on the next big sporting event, The World Cup. The US soccer team kicks off their World Cup aspirations against England Saturday evening in South Africa. A win over England would start the tournament off with a bang.

This year the USA side sports names like Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Freddy Adu, Clint Dempsey, and Chicagoland local (Arlington Heights) Jonathan Spector - all of which have English Premier League experience.

Good luck boys! See if you can steal some points from the Three Lions!

Consistency Please!

2010-06-08T06:26:00.000-07:00

In the past month, I've stayed at three Holiday Inn Express hotels. Two different ones in Liverpool and one in Bristol. For the most part, the experience is consistent and I get what I'm expecting. However, where they've fallen short is with their internet charge policies.

The rooms are consistent, the breakfasts are consistent, the lobbies are consistent, the check-in processes are consistent, so why can't make their internet charge policies consistent? One was up front about the charge. However, they waived the charge for Priority Club members (which I am) and they told that to me as soon as I checked in. Another one didn't communicate the charge of 5 pounds up front, but they still waived it because I am a Priority Club member.

Yet, this weekend, I called down to the front desk at the Bristol HI Express to ask how to connect to their wireless network. Their response was that it would cost me 12 pounds. Twelve pounds?! I asked them if that charge applied to Priority Club members. They said that it did indeed. Piss off!

Bristol: Birthplace of Wallace & Grommit

2010-06-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

I didn't know this before I went to Bristol, but I learned that Aardman, the creators of Wallace & Grommit, are based in Bristol. Apparently because of their success, Bristol has attracted a total of 50 animation studios and is the hotbed of animation in the UK. Who knew?

Besides that, Bristol has three other prominent features: The Floating Harbour, The SS Great Britian and the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

The Floating Harbour makes Bristol the "Venice of the North." You can get all over town via ferries and water taxies. See the picture below. Yes, that's a swan about to get run over by the ferry. I assure you, though, that the swan got out of the way.

The SS Great Britain was the first iron hulled steamship ever built to feature a screw propeller. Essentially it was a passenger liner that failed at it's main task due to design flaws and inexplicable navigational errors by its captain. The ship made only two round trips to New York. However, after being refit, she made a long history of service running the England to Australia passage. The SS Great Britain, however, is another museum that I didn't actually visit. The museum wants 11.95 pounds for admission. Why would I pay 12 pounds to see the inside of a ship, when I can see the outside for free? Some these places need to get real with their pricing.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge was a fantastic sight. It's simply a suspension bridge that crosses the Avon Gorge at Clifton, but it's a beautiful sight.

Finally, I'll give you my favorite experience in Bristol. On Saturday night, I took a co-worker's advice and went over to the Hotel du Vin just to have a drink. The hotel was upper crust, but I didn't feel out of place in my t-shirt and jeans. The bar area was designed in a rustic fashion and they were playing Michael Bublé. I ordered a bottle of Gem, an amber ale brewed in Bath. I'm not particularly a fan of Bublé but something about the combination of the location, the ale, and the music was uber relaxing. I didn't take any pictures; I'm keeping this memory to myself. If you get a chance to hang out at the Hotel du Vin, however, I'd highly recommend it.

Bath: Jane Austen's Most Hated Playground

2010-06-06T16:20:00.001-07:00

I got off the train in Bath and I had no idea what to expect. I knew that there was a Jane Austen museum in town and old Roman bath house, but not much else. What I discovered was that Bath was the place for the elite to hobnob in the 18th century and into the 19th century.

Jane Austen was born in 1775 and grew up during the heyday of Bath's high society. Though she was raised out in the country, she'd often visit family and friends in Bath, where the gatherings at the Upper Assembly Halls and the society inspired much of her writing.

I've only read Pride and Prejudice and Emma, two of the books where the characters only visit the city and most of the story takes place out in the country, so I didn't know that Bath was such a big feature of her writing. I learned that Northanger Abbey and Persuasion took place almost exclusively in the city of Bath. So, in the gift shop, I picked up a special edition of Persuasion and plan on reading in the near future while my memories of Bath are still fresh in my head. In Persuasion Austen apparently shows her distaste for the city and the social climbers, which contrasts to the image she paints in Northanger Abbey. Persuasion was written after she'd lived in Bath.

The hot springs that rise from below provide the city with natural hot spring mineral baths. The baths are obviously where the city gets it's name from. At the time, the population believed that the mineral baths could cure all that ails you. In fact, there's a building in town (no longer in use for it's intended purpose) that was called the Royal Mineral Water Hospital. Here's a picture of the King's and Queen's Bath. You can see where the original water level was if you note the shade change from orange to cream in the picture below.

Here's a picture of the Royal Crescent. If you were the creme de la creme, you could afford a flat in the Royal Crescent or The Circus, both of which are close to the prestigious Upper Assembly Halls. Since Bath grew so fast during the 1700's, most of the city is filled with these Georgian style houses. On a sunny day, they make the hillsides glow.

Most of these Georgian houses would also have Georgian gardens in the backyard. Here is a picture of a Georgian garden. Note that there isn't any grass. This is because the lawn mower hadn't been invented yet. Thus, they'd use gravel in their gardens and the gardener would even the gravel with one of these gravel rollers.

The city lost most of it's luster during the Regency era when the ruling monarch decided that the seawater at Brighton was better for people's health than the mineral waters at Bath. Soon Brighton became the resort of choice and Bath's status began to slide. However, it appears as though the upper crust hasn't completely vacated the city.

Bath was an absolutely wonderful experience. If you happen to be in the area, I strongly urge you to stop for a day. However, I will warn you that it is a tourist trap. The price to do anything touristy is jacked up. In fact, I decided against going on the Roman Baths tour because they wanted 11.50 pounds (roughly $17.00) to look at a pool similar to the one that I took a picture of for free . . .

Missing In Action

2010-06-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted since Sunday. Since I started blogging it is the longest I've gone without blogging. My apologies. Since Sunday, I've had an Anniversary (6 years) to celebrate, a transatlantic flight, and three solid days of work back here in Dublin with added responsibilities.

My increased responsibilities are thus: Not only am I in charge of data conversion for our project, I have also inherited the role of HR Functional Process Lead. I'll be filling in for my departing boss until they can find somebody else to pick up the duties. So, I'm now also in charge of the testing portion of the project. The new role comes with more meetings, which means I have less time to do more work.

On the bright side, I've booked a flight to Bristol tomorrow morning and will spend the weekend touring both Bristol and Bath in Western England. I look forward to posting a few more travel blogs. I hope that my absence hasn't deterred anybody from reading.

Oh yeah, I forgot something.

GO BLACKHAWKS!

Back home . . . for a few days

2010-05-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

I'm back home for the Memorial Day weekend (and Beth's and my Anniversary). A lot of things have gone on in the last couple of days, I'm having a hard time getting caught up. So, my whirlwind weekend has been spent trying to figure out what exactly is going on. On top of that, keeping up with RJ is a task in it's own right.

I had my meeting with my boss on Friday. It seemed to go well, but was a little cryptic. She agreed that the job description that I wrote up worked. I left the job title for her to complete, but she didn't. There was no discussion of money, either. In fact, I think that most of the conversation was about her getting comfortable with my ability to think strategically. I guess I'll wait and see what really happens.

My grandmother is in the hospital with fractures in her pelvic bone due to just going outside and gardening. RJ and I are heading up to see her today. (Beth needs a day off after having to keep up with RJ 24/7 for the last 3 weeks . . . and the next three weeks, so she's taking a needed day off).

My grandfather (other side of the family) has a new leg; a prosthetic one. I won't be able to make it up to see him this weekend. I'm going to try to make the trip up the next time I'm back in town (Father's Day Weekend).

Our neighbors had a memorial for their wife/mother who passed one year ago. (We miss you AOG!)

Enterprise rental car company appears to want to charge us $100 for the tolls we didn't pay in Ireland . . . which we did pay. That will be a nightmare trying to fight the Irish tolling authority through Enterprise - who doesn't really give a lick because they don't have any money at stake. The tolling authority bills them for the tolls (with penalties) and they charge my credit card.

RJ has done a couple of headers since I've been back has matching knots on both sides of his forehead. His forehead looks like we cut off a pair of horns.

Beth took me out to see a buyer's club that she wants to join that just opened in McHenry. We had some of their organic eggs and sausages for breakfast yesterday - good stuff. We'll probably end up joining, but I'm not so sure how long the business will last. The store was might empty.

We now have a landscaper. It is summer and I'm in Ireland. Beth shouldn't be doing heavy garden work, so she convinced me to hire a landscaper. It didn't take much convincing, I don't want Beth to throw her back out because then I'd only feel more guilty about being in Ireland. Additionally, we hire a company to cut the lawn . . . I could get used to that.

And that's getting you caught up with what I'm getting caught up with.

Have you ever been lucky enough . . .

2010-05-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

. . . to write your own job description? Two weeks ago, upon my return from the IHRIM Conference where I was graciously awarded with an Excellence Award, I was given that task. I sat down with my VP and she informed me that my new boss who was hired in February had given notice that he was leaving our company. My question: "What does that mean for me?"

She dropped two scenarios in front of me and honestly I don't remember the first because it wasn't very appealing. However, the second idea seemed to make sense: manage the company's HR systems globally. Neither of us really understood what the responsibilities were, so she tasked me with writing the job description and a transition plan to the new position.

I considered including things like: "Responsible for leading corporate wide nap efforts" or "Required to work in chocolate production facility as taste-tester" (yes we do produce chocolate at some of our facilities) or "In charge of making others accountable for their actions." Yet, in the end I put together something a little more professional which required only 25-33% travel (as a global systems manager, it would be hard to drive that down to 0%) as opposed to my current 100%. That means more time at home with Beth and RJ.

Tomorrow morning we're going over the draft of the job description that I wrote. Hopefully she hasn't marked it up too much with her red pen.

What would you put in your job description if you got to write it?

Pelé, I'm not

2010-05-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

Since last October, I've been playing off and on in the project team's Monday/Tuesday night soccer league. Actually it's more like a pick-up game than a real league. I've probably played in ten games out of the fifty available to play since last October. Last night I finally scored my first goal.

Actually I scored two. I haven't played competitive soccer since I was 6/7 years old. I've been vowing to score a goal since the second game I played (last October). I have noticed that as an American, I really don't have much to go on for foot skills. Our sports tend to be more hand-eye coordination sports (football, basketball, baseball and even hockey), so I'm not accustomed to all this foot control. So at soccer, I've sucked. I don't like to suck. I don't need to be great, I just don't want to suck. Last night, I felt like I was a level above sucking, so it made me feel a little better.

Since last October, however, I have taken solace in my ability to play goalkeeper in a not-so-bad fashion (more of a hand-eye coordination job). It appears that the Europeans think it a shit job and rarely know how to play effective in front of the net. In fact, it's the place people go to "take a break." Thus, I'll often volunteered to play keeper anytime I can. Otherwise, I mostly play defense and throw my full-figured, American body around to get people off the ball.

Also, with the World Cup around the corner, I thought I'd also throw out a heads up for everybody to throw their support behind the American team. We've drawn into a group that we should be able to advance out of. England is the favorite to win our group, but the top two teams can advance out. So, we just need to beat Slovenia and Algeria to make it to the elimination round. Should be a doable task. Heck, we might just win our group.

We kickoff against England on June 12th. Good luck guys!

Knocking Off a Few Counties

2010-05-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

I’m one of those people who make checklists. A few months ago, I made a checklist of counties that I’d visited in Ireland. At the time, I decided that I would like to do something touristy in each county to be able to say that I’d been there. In other words, I
can’t check off a county by just driving through it.

There are 32 counties on the island (i.e. Republic of Island & Northern Ireland combined). Before this weekend, I had checked-off 13 counties. After this weekend, I now have 15 counties checked off . . . I’m almost halfway there. This weekend, I visited County Carlow and County Kildare.

Neither county can be considered to have high tourist value. Kildare ranks slightly higher than Carlow - specifically if you are into horse racing. It is the home of the Irish National Stud – a museum about horse racing and breeding. Additionally the Irish National Stud has two garden areas that children appear to love (RJ was not here to enjoy). However, from a standpoint of value, skip it. It’s 11 Euro a head (children are about half that) and it’s nothing more than gardens and horses. The museum is anemic and the guided tour is a let down. It might be a grand day out with children, but if you’re aren’t with any, head over to The Curragh and wager on some horses instead.

A Mare and Foal at the Irish National Stud

What can I say about Carlow town? Nothing really, except that they have a fleet of swans living in the Barrow River. Seriously, there are like 25-30 of them swimming around next to the park. There is an interesting story about a doctor who dynamited the walls of Carlow Castle to make it a more suitable insane asylum and ruined the entire castle in so doing. I’d recommend that you drive on past and head for Kilkenny instead.

Carlow's Fleet of Swans on the Barrow

List of Counties Visited: Antrim, Carlow, Clare, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Roscommon, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow.

List of Counties Not Visited: Armagh, Cavan, Cork, Derry (Londonderry), Donnegal, Down, Fermanagh, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Monaghan, Offaly, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford.

Completion: 47%

Snowdonia

2010-05-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

". . . when you are on your own you start to look at nature, and to love it." - Erich Maria Remarque

In an earlier blog where I reviewed All Quiet on the Western Front I pulled this quote from the book. It's a true statement and has a lot of meaning to me. During the many weekends that I spend alone in Ireland, I try to get out and see something - nature specifically. It's a way to distract me from thinking about how much I miss Beth and RJ. Last weekend, I was very distracted by the beauty of North Wales. It was gorgeous. I don't think I can properly describe how magical and beautiful the area is, so I'll just show you pictures.

The Roman Fortress at Caernafon

Swallow Falls near Betws-y-Coed

The Snowdonia Mountain Railroad
It takes you to the peak of Mount Snowdon (1085 meters)
A wonderful view if there aren't any clouds. I got clouds.

Some Perspective - That's Mount Snowdon in the clouds at the top right of the picture below.

Sunset over Mount Snowdon after hiking halfway up it along The Miner's Track.

Castle Dolbadarn

I love Irish culture, but it just may kill me

2010-05-20T16:51:00.001-07:00

I'm kidding . . . but I'm not. Tonight marks the third consecutive night that I've been out drinking with my project team. Last night was a rough one, but Tuesday night and tonight, not so bad.

Last night we had a project social event. I left at 11:30 pm before . . . before the singing started. If you know me, which many of you do, you know that I love to be everywhere and experience everything. I have a little regret about missing the singing, especially because I do love a good karaoke night (even if it's a capella).

However, I like to think that I've learned a few lessons while I'm here. The first of which is to not try to out-drink anybody. Have a few drinks, have a good time, quit while you're ahead and go to bed. I quit last night while I was ahead.

The second lesson is beware of free beer. I'm usually too cheap to get drunk. I mean, come on, a beer over here cost 5 Euro ($6.50 US). You buy a round or two and you're busted for the night. However, when the beer is free - as it was at last night's social event - I need to be careful. As cheap as I am, I love a free beer (or two, three, four, five).

So, even though, I have been enjoying the social life in Ireland, I have been much more responsible in my consumption habits. In fact, I was even the first into the office the next day.

I'm Tired, so here's more Liverpool pictures

2010-05-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Late night tonight, I'll post on Snowdonia tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some more pictures of Liverpool for you.

A bowl of Ma' Boyle's Scouse - the dish that Liverpuddlians get their nickname - Scousers. It tastes like stew. It is stew.

Interesting door handle

A remnant from 2008 when Liverpool was named the European Capital of Culture

The Ferris Wheel on Albert Dock at night

What I affectionately call the "Serve or Die" statue. The statue basically says that if you refuse to serve in the military, you will be locked up, or put to death. The statue came complete with what looked like prison cells (see the grates at the base of the statue).

A picture of a picture of the Fab 4

A tribute to John

Paul and Julian - The composer and the muse of "Hey Jude"

Speaking of "Hey Jude" how about a Gold Record?

Please yield to the Humped Zebras

Liverpool: Beatles, Soccer, Cathedral, and Nightlife

2010-05-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a weekend! Once I got past the pain of Ryan Air's boarding policies, I settled in and started enjoying myself. I visited Beatles museums, a monstrous cathedral, the highest peak in Wales, a few football (soccer) stadiums, a castle or two, and a few bars along the way. In addition, I had another run-in with the evil volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. The story is long enough that I'm going to break it into two parts: Liverpool & Snowdonia.

Liverpool

After landing in Liverpool, my colleague took me to THE most important attraction in the city: Ansfield Stadium, the home of Liverpool FC. There is also a shrine to the Hillsborough 96, the unfortunate 96 people who died at Hillsborough stadium in a 1989 FA Cup semi-final match against Nottingham Forest FC. Often misunderstood as an event of hooliganism, the cause of this tragedy was in fact due to the police trying to control the crowd at the expense of their safety. The deaths all occurred prior to the match starting as the crush of fans tried to get into the stadium. All 96 people who died were Liverpool FC supporters. R.I.P - The Hillsborough 96

Now that we got that depressing bit out of the way. On to something a little more fun: Friday. I started Friday out with a trip to two Beatles museums. The Beatles Story and The Beatles Story - Pier Head. One admission gets you into both museums. I learned quite a bit about the Fab 4 that I didn't know, including that Stuart Sutcliffe was the fifth Beatle (who left the band early on to pursue his art career, but died shortly after. He was not alive to experience the regret of leaving the band. Additionally, I learned that Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best as the drummer. These may be known to your average Beatle-ologist, but it was unbeknown to me, your average Gen-Xer who barely remembers holding vigil for John Lennon in elementary school.

The Pier Head exhibition really hit me hard as it was sponsored by Cynthia Lennon (John Lennon's ex-wife) and Julian Lennon (John and Cynthia's son). In this exhibit were quite a few pieces of John Lennon memorabilia. What hit me hard were the correspondence displayed like love letters from John to Cynthia from the road and a postcard from Julian to his father which simply read: "Lover from Julian to Daddy." My eyes got a little wet as I thought dearly of my family at home. Here are a couple more pictures:

I then visited one of the largest cathedrals in the world: Liverpool Cathedral. This was an unexpected find for me. I had walked all around Liverpool taking pictures of the different buildings and enjoying the scenery. When my colleague met me, he didn't know what to show me because I'd walked all over town and seen it all. He finally walked me up to Liverpool Cathedral, which I passed on because it was a little of of the way (I also didn't know that it was one of the largest cathedrals in the world - I just thought it was closer than it looked). When we got there, I was in awe of the immensity of the building. The cafe and gift shop in the sanctuary is a nice touch.

Finally, I ended my first day with a night on the town, where I believe that a scouser (that is the nickname for people from Liverpool) was hitting on me. He kept coming over by me and putting his arm around me. I couldn't understand a freakin' thing he said over the music and through his scouser accent. I got out of there as quick as I could. I did see a good show at the Cavern Club, which is famous for being one of the Beatles favorite venues.

Next: On to Snowdonia!

Welcome to Liverpool

2010-05-14T00:43:00.000-07:00

I made it to Liverpool last night, but my bag almost didn't make it. Let me rephrase, I almost had to pay for my carry-on bag. If you've never had the experience of flying Ryan Air, you may not understand. Let me explain.

Ryan Air has revolutionized air travel in Europe with low cost flights to most of Europe. There are a few ways that they have been able to accomplish this. First, they have 1 model of airplane. A few days after 9/11, the owner of Ryan Air made the single largest purchase of airplanes from Boeing . . . ever. Every model airplane he bought was the same. What does this mean? One set of maintenance parts, one set of training manuals for the crew, etc. He standardized his fleet.

Second, Ryan Air brokers deals with local municipalities/chambers of commerce to subsidize flights coming into their airports. For instance, Liverpool may pay Ryan Air 100,000 GBP annually to fly into Liverpool. I don't know offhand if Liverpool has a deal like this with Ryan Air, but it is how Ryan Air does business. Why would a city agree to do something like this? It brings in tourism dollars in excess of what they pay Ryan Air.

Finally, Ryan Air charges you a la carte for just about everything under the sun. Want to use a credit card to book? 5 Euro. Want to check a bag? 25 Euro. Forget to check-in online and bring your boarding pass? 25 Euro. Your carry-on bag is oversize? Check it for 25 Euro.

So back to my story . . . as I was boarding the airplane, one of the Ryan Air employees pulled me aside and asked me to check to see if my bag fit into their metal frame. On my first attempt, it didn't fit. I moved some things around. Still didn't fit. I sat there for about 5 minutes rearranging my bag stuffing, kicking, and pushing on my bag to get it into that damn metal frame. It was tight, but by God, I made it fit. Once I got it into the metal frame, it took me another minute or two to get it back out. Meanwhile, people with larger bags than mine walked right past because the frame was occupied by me and my bag.

So a lessons learned for me: 1) Pack light ; 2) Wear layers of clothing on Ryan Air flights so that your bag fits in the frame; 3) Make sure you don't have an odd-shaped bag.

A Magical Mystery Tour

2010-05-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

I landed in Dublin yesterday and I am already packing to leave. About two months ago, I booked a Ryan Air flight to Liverpool for 26 Euros (about $30 US). It was such a good price that if I didn't use it, I wouldn't be too upset at losing $30.

As of yesterday morning, I was planning on not going to Liverpool. Being two days late into Dublin - I was a little self conscious about how much work I had to catch up on. However, after being back in town yesterday, getting caught up, and talking to my team members, I've decided to use the flight and have a weekend in Liverpool.

One of my main concerns was that I would not be able to get back to Dublin if the volcanic ash cloud shifted once again. My colleague from Liverpool has assured me if that happens, he'll pick me up from my hotel and we'll take the ferry back to Dublin.

So, with all of my concerns addressed, I'm flying out to Liverpool tonight - returning early Monday morning. Of the many things to do in Liverpool, I do plan on taking the Magical Mystery Tour, taking in some Beatles history.

I'll also likely visit Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. The rest of my agenda for the weekend in wide open. I've rented a car - let's see where it takes me.

Three Things I Learned at the IHRIM Conference

2010-05-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

IHRIM HRMStrategies Conference 2010, Las Vegas. I won an Excellence Award, a $100 American Express Gift Card, and $200 at the Chairman's Texas Hold 'em Tournament. I renewed old friendships and set the foundations for new ones. I received some good advice and shared some good advice. Mostly, I learned. I learned quite a bit and I'd like to share some of that knowledge with you lest I let it flutter from my head without being used.

1) Good leaders don't compromise their values. Most managers (when asked) will say that Family and Integrity are the values that are most important to them, but they are also the values that they feel they compromise the most as managers. I really need to stop this compromising of my family for my job. (Thanks to Stan Slap for this bit of information)

2) The top three things that give you a return on investment in HR are implementing a Shared Services model, outsourcing your application hosting, and implementing competency management. I'm still not sold on the hosting - as I believe it depends on company size. But I was surprised to see competency management in the top 3. (Thanks to Lexy Martin and Karen Beaman for this data)

3) Bring it up, talk it up, wrap it up. I have found that I don't often speak up when I see something wrong. I'm more a walk-away person. Instead of resolving issues, I'd wait until they piled up too high for me to bear then I'd walk away. That is why I Haven't spent more than 3.5 years at a company. This just in - I just passed the 3.5 year mark at my current company. I need to address issues when they come up instead of letting them fester, which will only lead to my own discomfort. (thanks to Helanie Scott for this advice)

Other conference attendees: What profound piece of wisdom did you pluck from the conference?

Eyjafjallajökull Strikes Back

2010-05-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

You thought it was under control? Awww, hell no! The Icelandic volcano which threatened my family's return from the Emerald Isle is erupting en force once again. Tonight, Eyjafjallajökull got its revenge and grounded my flight. So now I'm not returning to Ireland until Tuesday evening.

Who said wishes don't come true? Although I'm a little disappointed that the flight didn't get out - since I have a ton of things to catch up with back in Ireland - I was secretly hoping to spend a little more time with my family before heading back. Beth tells me that her Mother's Day wish came true.

So perhaps it's an angry volcano, or perhaps it's the divine hand of God. Either way, I've got another two days with my family and I'm going to cherish it.

A Tardily Written Acceptance

2010-05-07T04:32:00.000-07:00

This past week I was honored by IHRIM with an Excellence Award at their annual HRMStrategies Conference. I was genuinely surprised that IHRIM would honor me with such a reward. Though I have been known to be my own worst critic, I haven’t quite felt that I deserved the award. Let me rephrase: I feel that there are many more deserving people within the organization than I.

I didn’t quite understand it until this morning as I lay awake in bed pondering my next blog should be about. Somehow I got around to the idea of awards and I made a connection that may be even more far-fetched than me receiving the award:

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award was considered by many, myself included, premature. Though there was controversy, President Obama accepted the award with “deep gratitude and great humility.” In his acceptance speech, he stated that he was at the beginning, and not at the end, of his labors.

And though I am no Barack Obama (and the IHRIM Excellence Award is no Nobel Peace Prize) I can still accept the IHRIM Excellence Award in the same spirit.

I am but at the beginning of promoting the use of social media for the benefit of IHRIM and its members (the reason for which I earned the award), not at the end. And thus it is with the deepest of gratitude and greatest of humilities that I can accept the award.

So I send out my heartfelt thanks to IHRIM and everyone who deems me worthy of the honors.

And finally for those of you wondering: Yes, "tardily" is an actual word and quite often reflects how I do things. ;)

Home Again for a Few Days

2010-05-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the IHRIM Conference in Las Vegas. My Excellence Award made it home with me, though in two pieces. Nothing a little glue can't fix though. Delayed flight. Late arrival home. In limbo somewhere between GMT and PST. Tired.

Full conference overview for everybody next Monday.

Buzzword Bingo

2010-05-05T01:39:00.000-07:00

How many "Lives" does your company have? What? I was asked this question once today at the IHRIM HRMStrategies Conference. Then I heard the term "Lives" in another educations session later that day. Let me put a stop to this now. Companies have employees, not "Lives."

If you are one of the people that is currently trying to promote the use of "Lives" as opposed to the terms "Employees" or "Headcount," you seriously need to stop trying to play buzzword bingo. You’re failing miserably.

Companies employ people to do work; that is why the terms "Employer" and "Employee" exist. Even though you may like to stake claim to our lives, please note that it is inappropriate to do so.

Stop it.

Now.

I mean it.

IHRIM HRMStrategies – Day One

2010-05-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

The first day at the IHRIM Conference was a good day for HRputer. I received an IHRIM Excellence Award for my online presence in the IHRIM Core community. Additionally, I won a $100 AmEx gift certificate in a raffle. To top it off, I didn’t lose any money at the blackjack tables.

This year, the Expo Hall is quite lively. There are a plethora of old companies and new companies to talk to. Even though, I believe I’ve talked with almost every workforce solution vendor under the sun, I can always find a new system that surprises me. This year that company is Flextrack.

I stopped by Flextrack’s booth with little knowledge of who they were and even less knowledge of what they did. By the end of our conversation, I discovered that they have a workforce solution that helps you to manage your contingent workforce (temporary and contract workers). The market it as a Vendor Management Solution (VMS) and when the economy is tight, you find that your contingent workforce rises. This solution helps you to manage that contingent workforce by enacting spend control measures, achieving greater control and compliance of your vendor community and helps you secure more favorable pricing with your contractors and vendors. Excellent show, Flextrack!

I am a little miffed that there are a few noticeable names missing from the Expo Hall this year: SAP, Oracle (I know your user group has a booth, but that hardly counts), Lawson, and Kronos (Sorry Ed, I just calls ‘em as I sees ‘em). Each of these companies should be an anchor point in Expo Hall considering how big their names are in the industry. Perhaps next year, guys?

Last Row of the Plane

2010-05-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

Flew into Las Vegas today and I had the pleasure of being in the very last row of the airplane. Now, with all the trans-Atlantic travel that I've been getting accustomed to, I don't remember what it's like to take a longer flight in a smaller plane.

Let's just say, it was a little turbulent. Near the end of the flight as we were landing in Vegas, I thought I was going to lose my lunch. That feeling was amplified in the last row of the plane. You really get thrown around back there. One lady a few rows ahead of me actually had to make a dash for the bathroom.

This makes me wonder if anybody actually uses the barf bags that the airlines so generously supply you with along with a copy of SkyMall and whatever passes for their own "in-flight" magazine. I've never actually used one or seen one used.

As I remember from previous flights into Vegas, McCarran airport has always had a bumpy landing. I guess there isn't much to block the winds from racing across the desert and throwing the airplane around. But this was a lesson learned for me. I'm going to try to stay out of the last row on a flight - particularly on flights into windy airports.

IHRIM, Here I Come!

2010-05-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, I'm catching a flight out of Chicago O'Hare bound for Las Vegas and the IHRIM HRMStrategies conference. IHRIM is the International Association for Human Resource Information Management - the professional organization I belong to.

I know that some people who read my blog will be there, so to those people: See you there! For those who don't know what it's about - it's for HR Systems (I think were moving to calling it (Workforce Solutions or something like that) professionals. I've been there many times and feel lucky that I was able to make it back this year as I've been working in Ireland. I missed last year's conference and missed seeing many of my HR Systems friends.

I really look forward to this conference as it's a great place to network with other HRIS professionals. The downside - as you might guess - is that it's another 4 days that I'm away from my family. I'm only home for two weeks and four of those days I'm out in Vegas.

Prayers for Natasha and Stacy

2010-04-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

There are some things in this world that just make you want to weep. Last Friday night one of those things happened. In Bucktown (a neighborhood in Chicago), two young ladies were struck in the head, repeatedly, with a baseball bat just for the cash and credit cards in their purses. You can read more about it here.

Natasha McShane and Stacy Jurich lie in a hospital trying to recover from head trauma. Stacy is coherent and was able to give enough evidence to the police for the police to make an arrest. Natasha is not doing so well and is currently in a drug induced coma.

Truth is that this kind of thing happens on a more regular basis than we think. This one registers on my radar because it's got the Chicago/Ireland link that I've been living for the last 9 months. It's sad that this kind of thing happens at all - to anyone. So I'd ask that you take a few moments and say a prayer for Natasha, Stacy, and all the other victims of senseless violence in this world.

Thank you.

The Blind Side

2010-04-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Beth and I borrowed The Blind Side from a friend (Thanks! Tiney) and watched it on Sunday. For those who are not up to speed on the movie scene (like us for example), this was the "true" (spiced with a dash of Hollywood) story of Michael Oher, Offensive Tackle for the Baltimore Ravens - drafted in 2009.

The movie was nominated a Best Picture Oscar and Sandra Bullock won the Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy, the matriarch of a southern family that adopts Michael.

I won't go into too much detail, because I'm not here to give you the Cliff Notes on the movie. I just like to point out the profound things that I see in my life and write about them.

The profound thing that I saw in the movie was characters moving outside of their comfort zones to take a chance. People watching this movie might think that it was the Tuohy family that took the risk of letting an outsider into their car and their home. However, don't underestimate that chance that Michael took. He also took quite a few steps out of his comfort zone to get into the car with the Tuohy family in the first place. How did he know that they didn't have ulterior motives?

Imagine for a moment walking down a street by yourself. You're homeless and it's raining. All you want to do is to get back to a place that you know that is safe and dry. Imagine now that a car pulls over. Somebody gets out of the car and offers you a ride and a place to sleep for the night. Do you get in? Do you trust that this stranger doesn't have ulterior motives? Is this how children/teenagers end up missing?

At some point you have to look to your gut to help you make a decision in that hypothetical situation. Both Michael and the Tuohy family took a chance to step outside of their comfort zones and both were rewarded for taking that chance. The truth is, however, that something could have gone horribly wrong for either party.

I'm happy that it worked out for them all. I admire them for their bravery. It's not easy stepping outside of our comfort zone, but sometimes it's worthwhile to take the chance.

Oh, American Sports, How I've Missed You!

2010-04-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

I've been home three days now and have had time to catch up on the two greatest sports in the world: Football (American) and Hockey.

I was lucky enough to catch the Blackhawks last two playoff games which were phenomenal. Saturday's game was particularly exhilarating with Kane tying the game shorthanded with 13 seconds left, then Hossa winning it in overtime - skating out of the penalty box straight to the net to score the game winner.

I also had time to catch up with my Chicago Bears and see what they've been doing in the offseason - who they brought in and who they let go. I'm happy to see Julius Peppers in the Navy and Orange. I'm not overly thrilled with the draft picks, but we traded a lot away to bring Cutler in. Still waiting to see Cutler to earn his paycheck.

Don't get me wrong. I have loved learning all the new sports that have been introduced or re-introduced to me while in Ireland: Soccer, Gaelic Football, Hurling, Rugby and Cricket. However, since I don't have any real reason to cheer for any teams in these sports, a lot of the experience has been lost on me.

I have been cheering for the Kerry Gaelic Football team (my company sponsors them) and Irish Soccer and Rugby, but it just isn't the same experience for me as sitting down in front of the TV on a Sunday afternoon and watching a Bears - Packers game.

Perhaps, I'll regain some enthusiasm this summer during the World Cup. USA is in the same group as England and we have quite a few English people working on our project team that I can taunt and be taunted by. I'll definitely have to deck myself out in the Red, White and Blue for those matches.

In the meantime: Let's go 'Hawks! Stick it to the Canucks!

The Current Arrangement

2010-04-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

It was absolutely wonderful to have Beth and RJ with me in Ireland. Oddly, that is the longest amount of consecutive time that I've been with my family since last summer. Today, my first full day back home, I'm having doubts about going back to Ireland.

Yes, I still have an apartment there. Also, I just told them that I would be willing to stay on for the Build phase of the project (we just completed the Design phase), which would keep the current arrangement going through September.

I'm not sure I can make it.

I'm continually amazed at how quickly RJ is learning things now. He's also gotten pretty attached to his Daddy . . . and his Daddy has gotten pretty attached to him. It's going to get harder and harder to return to Ireland without my family.

I'm accustomed to taking on too much. In fact, it is one of my (many) faults. I love to learn new things by taking on entirely too many of them. However, it's easy to say that I haven't found anything more enjoyable than this new experience of being a father. Over the next two weeks I'll be reevaluating my situation, discussing it with my wife and my VP to see what's really workable, because I don't think that the current arrangement (me in Ireland 100% of the time with Beth and RJ visiting about 50%) will work for me much longer.

European Union: Nutters, Anti-Semites and Homophobes?

2010-04-23T17:23:00.001-07:00

First off, let me declare two things: 1) The family and I have arrived safely back home in the USA. 2) I don't quite understand how British politics works.

Last night the three party leaders in Great Britain were having a second debate on live TV. During the course of the debate Nick Clegg (leader of a 3rd political party know as the Liberal Democrats) accused one of his opponents (David Cameron, Conservative Party) of aligning himself with "nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists and homophobes."

Right after Clegg uttered these words, Beth and I turned to each other (we were obviously watching the debate) mouths agape. It sounded to us that Nick Clegg had just accused the European Union of being nutters.

In actuality, it seems, he was only accusing certain parties within the European Parliament of being nutters. For instance, the late Polish President, Lech Kaczynski's, political party. Kaczynski had (in his term as Mayor of Warsaw) banned gay pride marches.

The interesting thing to Beth and I is that there was very little outrage about the comment that Clegg made. Had Clegg made that comment regarding an American politician, he likely would have been sued for slander (or libel - I forget which is written and which is spoken).

I'm still acclimating to European politics. Any other thoughts on how an American politician would respond to such an accusation?

The Flaming Ash Hole

2010-04-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

Eyjafjallajokull? Go Eyjafjallajokull yourself. Yes, that is the name of the Icelandic volcano that has thrown European airspace asunder. Tomorrow, we get to take on the great Eyjafjallajokull by flying out of Ireland.

The flight that we're on goes back and forth between Chicago and Dublin every day. Ever since Eyjafjallajokull vomited its ash into the air, the flight had been grounded. Wednesday afternoon, serviced started up again and there have been two successful journeys to Chicago and one successful return trip.

God willing, we'll be able to fly home tomorrow. But just to be safe, we're looking to sacrifice a couple of virgins to the Volcano to appease it's hunger. Anybody know where we can find some?

Connemara, Part 5 - The Cliffs at the End of the Trip

2010-04-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

As the sunset on Friday night, we started packing to head back to the apartment in Dublin. There was one last stop on our agenda, though: The Cliffs of Moher. This was the third and final miscalculation that I made in Irish driving time. I'm sure I'll make more miscalculations, but this would be the last one that I made on this vacation.

The Cliffs of Moher sit in County Clare and not technically in Connemara. But they tower over the ocean beneath and provide some spectacular scenery.

I give you the Cliffs of Moher:

Connemara, Part 4 - Connemara National Park, Achill Island

2010-04-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

The last two days of our trip, we decided on hitting Connemara National Park and Achill Island. Though Achill Island isn't officially in Connemara, it was part of our trip. These were probably the two most beautiful places that we went.

Connemara National Park was a perfect place to take RJ as it had everything that a 15 month old could want: A playground, sheep (he got over his episode at Airfield Farm), Connemara ponies and a trek up the side of a mountain. Ok, perhaps the trek up the side of the mountain isn't something that a 15-month old would want - unless he's riding his Dad like a pony. :)

Here's a picture of RJ enjoying a Diet Coke (bottle):

Friday, we decided to take a short drive up to Achill Island in County Mayo. Yes, there is a county named after Mayonaise (not really). The short trip (which I expected to take 2 hours) took us 3 hours. Once again, my powers of drive-time estimation were foiled by narrow Irish roads. The good thing is that the payoff was great. We ended up at Keem Beach which was an absolutely fabulous place.

We almost didn't make it here, because we passed two other (not quite as) beautiful beaches that didn't involve us driving up over that last mountain - which involved a narrow road, no guard rails and very little margin for error between our minivan and the Atlantic Ocean.

Connemara, Part 3 - Kylemore Abbey

2010-04-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

When you're out in Connemara, everybody says that you have to go out and see Kylemore Abbey. They're quite right, you do need to SEE Kylemore Abbey. It is absolutely beautiful architecture set against the backdrop of a mountain and a lake.

However, I don't know if I'd recommend actually paying the fee to go in. When we went, the cost was 10 Euro (Book of Kells was 9 Euro) per person to get in. That was the highest entrance fee I've paid to get into any historic site in Ireland.

Once you're in, you can take the walk down to the Gothic Church, tour the lower floor of the Abbey, and visit the gardens. Admittedly, we didn't visit the gardens and perhaps that would have made up the balance of the 10 Euro per person.

My recommendation is this: If you're on a tight budget, visit the Abbey, take some pictures and have lunch at the cafe there, but don't pay the entrance fee. There are a few places you can get good shots of the Abbey without going in. However, if you're not on a tight budget, drop the 10 Euro and go in. There are some beautiful views on the walk to the Gothic Church and my experience with gardens at other such places tells me that the gardens would have been wonderful as well.

Kylemore Abbey is an absolutely wonderful site to see.

Connemara, Part 2 - A bunch of driving and a haircut

2010-04-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

We had planned on our second day in Connemara to head out to the Aran Islands. I've heard that it's absolutely beautiful there. To get there we'd need to take a ferry across. We ran into a couple of problems.

The first problem is that we did not have an internet connection or a phone book. Being so reliant on technology has its limits. We didn't know what time the ferry left. I figured if we left by 9:30AM, we'd get to the ferry port by 10:30AM and wouldn't have to wait too long. I was half right. If we'd gotten to the ferry port by 10:30AM we would have been right on time for the ferry. The second problem was that I didn't realize is that it would take us an hour and a half to get to the ferry port. This was my first lesson in Irish driving times that I would fail to learn two or three more times on our vacation (much to Beth's chagrin). We arrived at 11AM and the next ferry was at 1PM. We decided to skip the Aran Islands.

However, we did find a nice coral beach by Carraroe to spend the day. Since we had some beautiful weather, we stuck around Carraroe for lunch and then headed back to our own beach. Here's RJ at the beach at Carraroe.

The following day, we had planned to go into Clifden to get RJ a haircut. RJ did really well. Here's a picture of him at Dog's Bay beach sporting his new do.

In those first few days, we did a bunch of driving, too. Here's a couple of my favorite spots.

Dog's Bay Beach

Lough Inagh

Killary Fjord

Connemara, Part 1 - a Garden, a Cottage and a Beach

2010-04-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Beth, RJ and I had a fantastic time in Connemara (County Galway, Ireland). Now it's over and all three of us are wishing that we were back at our beach front cottage on the bay - not only for the wonderful view, but the for the amount of space we had at the cottage compared to the amount we have at our two room apartment back in Dublin.

I figured I'd do a recap of the vacation in a few parts. I don't know how many parts yet, but I'm guessing at least three, probably more. Beth and I got so many pictures and we had such good weather it might be easier to say where we didn't go in Connemara.

First, I'll start with our trip out to Connemara. We stopped at a place in Roscahill (just outside of Galway City) called Brigit's Garden. This was a great time for the whole family. After two hours in the car, RJ got to run around for a bit, we all had some lunch, and enjoyed the scenery. Beth liked it so much that she wants to back in the summer when everything is in bloom. Here's RJ entertaining himself with a stick that he found.

When we arrived at our cottage (pictured in the top right corner), we were amazed by the view and immediately ran across the road to the beach. This is RJ playing in the sand at the Coral Strand beach (north of Ballyconneely) right across the road from our cottage.

Here is picture of the sunset from the front yard of our cottage. We believe that those are Connemara Ponies (not horses) which are a special type of pony that have many legends about how they came to be. My favorite is the one about how the Spanish Armada ran aground in the area circa 1588 and let their Andalusians loose in the area. The result of the breeding between the Andalusians and the local ponies are said to be the ancestors of the Connemara Ponies.

End of Part 1

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

2010-04-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits I have received from not being an avid reader for much of my life is that it's very easy for me to find great books that I haven't read. My reading list has a lot of award winners on it and books that have already received their kudos. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is one of those highly touted books.

In the mid 1980's this book won a Hugo Award (best science fiction or fantasy book of the year - published in English) and a Nebula Award (best science fiction or fantasy book of the year - US). You know what? It deserved them.

Card gives us a simple story about a child (Ender Wiggin) who is being groomed to be humanity's greatest general - and their last hope. Through a training regimen of war games, Ender learns everything he needs to know about being a battle commander, but nothing about being a child or a friend. Does he have control over his own actions, or is the school pulling his strings like a puppet? You'll just have to read it to find out.

The writing style is simple to follow, which makes it a great book for young adults as well. It's a great tale with a good twist at the end. I'll definitely be adding a few more of Card's books to my reading list.

2500 pages down 7500 pages to go. I'm 3-days behind schedule.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

2010-04-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

I had a recent crisis of conscious when I realized that all those great books that I was supposed to read in high school - I didn't. A couple of you guys reading this blog (I'm talking to you, Jaime, Chuck and Wally) might remember Mrs. Herringer's junior year English class. All Quiet on the Western Front was one of the books that we were supposed to read.

I'll admit now (to the world) that I short-cutted the book by watching the movie, instead of reading the book. Years later, I've come to realize that I might have missed out on some great books, so I've decided to throw a few of them in as part of my 10,000 pages challenge.

All Quiet on the Western Front was a brilliant book. I don't think that I stand alone when I say that and its probably not news to anybody else. However, I would like to take a quote from the book because it very pertinent to me and my adventures overseas. Remarque wrote (from Paul Baumer's perspective):

". . . when you are on your own you start to look at nature, and to love it."

It's an obscure piece of wisdom that I've found to be completely true. In the weeks that I'm in Ireland by myself, I tend to spend my weekends in nature. It can get lonely over here, but when you see the majesty of nature you don't feel so alone. In fact, you quickly realize that you are not alone because God is with you - God who created the majesty.

Here's one of my favorite places thus far: Port Magee in County Kerry. Unfortunately it's over 4 hours drive away.

I've really come to love the rocky shorelines of the Emerald Isle. I'll miss them when I'm gone. 2150 pages and counting.

Free at Last!

2010-04-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

It's vacation time! I'm not sure if we're going to have much internet or cell phone access out in Connemara. We head out tomorrow and will be there through Saturday next week. I'm missing a couple of project team parties (Wednesday was just the HCM stream) to commemorate the transition from Detail Design phase to Build phase. One of them is a trip to the Jameson Distillery. I suppose I'll have to stop there by myself some weekend.

If I don't have internet access, I'll see you in a week with a bunch of pictures to share.

One More Day Until Vacation . . .

2010-04-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

. . . it must be time to get sick. All three of us are coming down with something. I think that RJ caught it first, then passed it to Beth and I. I'm hoping it goes away before we drive out to Connemara this weekend. I hate being sick on vacation!

Looks like we'll have good weather, too! (at least for the first weekend)

Sorry for the short post, but I don't want to barf on my keyboard.

The Gang's All Here

2010-04-07T16:36:00.000-07:00

The HR reference group (executive team) is in town this week to approve all the work that we've done designing the software solution for our company. So I had dinner with them and a few drinks at the bar after dinner. We were joined by a few more team members from other workstreams.

Leaving the bar at midnight to get home, I'm still amazed at how many people I left at the bar with drinks in their hands.

Looks like our work has been signed off and we can progress to the build phase of our project. Sounds like a good reason for a drink to me.

Planning for Connemara

2010-04-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

After months of hard work on the project, I'm finally getting a break. Next week (starting this Saturday), Beth, RJ and I will be spending a week in the Connemara area of County Galway. I did not take the picture on the right, but it's the kind of landscape that we expect to see while we're there.

We rented a cottage near Ballyconneely for the week which helps with the gluten free control. Instead of relying on our luck in finding gluten free restaurants, we have the ability to buy gluten free groceries before we go and cook for ourselves at the cottage.

The cottage is right across from a beach. Though, the weather here hasn't been beach weather. We're hoping that it's good enough to at least go out for walks on the beach in the morning before loading up the mini-van for more adventures in Connemara.

Here is the first official heads-up: the blog may be a little slow over that week, but I'm writing up a few pieces in advance for the times that I'm gone. I don't believe that we'll have internet access while we're in our remote cottage, so you may have to come to the blog site directly as I won't be able to re-post to facebook.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's not easy to be away from family on holidays. I'm thankful that Beth and RJ were with me for Easter. Though, I did miss the usual get-together that my parents have every Easter. We made do and celebrated the holiday as best we could.

In the morning we headed out to the beach at Portrane. We didn't know it before we went there, but it became a seashell collecting expedition. We picked up a bunch of beautiful shells from the beach - though I have no idea what Beth will do with them. I suspect that they will adorn our home in McHenry in some fashion or another. The picture is Beth and RJ walking on the beach.

Later, we had a large Easter dinner that consisted of ham, potatoes, swede (rutabaga), carrots, asparagus, green beans, and biscuits. Beth did a good job with the meal and I am stuffed.

Happy Easter Everybody!

Daddy & Son Day

2010-04-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today Mommy got a much needed break. RJ and I had a Daddy & Son day and Mommy got to stay at home and relax. I decided to take RJ to Airfield Farm and Antique Car Museum.

As you can see in the picture (or perhaps you can't) RJ got to see the Easter bunny hiding behind a chicken. He also got to see cows, sheep, pigs and ducks. Unfortunately, nothing interested him more than the buckle in his stroller.

His favorite animals were the chickens. He loved standing behind the fence and watching them run around. He was a little more timid around the larger animals but still liked petting the ponies.

He is not a big fan of sheep. I had him sitting on my knee next to one of the sheep pens and tried to get him to pet the sheep. The sheep bleated loudly right in his face; RJ began to cry. For the rest of the day we couldn't come within 10 feet of a sheep. Here's RJ's woolen nemesis:

We had a fun day and RJ slept all the way home. The End.

Dry Friday

2010-04-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

Today is Good Friday. Traditionally, Ireland closes down it's pubs and prohibits the sale of liquor on this hallowed day. I witnessed it first-hand, noticing the liquor section of the local convenience store roped off today. No liquor is to be sold on Good Friday . . .

Unless you happen to be going to the big rugby match in Limerick. Muenster hosted Leinster today (the two Irish rugby powerhouses) and the city of Limerick was given an exemption from the prohibition since, I guess, it's impossible to enjoy rugby unless your drunk. I can also personally attest to this. The one rugby match that I attended was much more fun because I was sloshed.

The funny thing is the home team that the exception was made for (Muenster) lost the match. Could it be that the Good Lord took exception to the T-shirts that were being printed for the match that said things like: "Officially bigger than the Catholic Church - Muenster Rugby" or "Mass will now take place at Thomond Park."

I subscribe to the theory that it's not a good idea to throw sand in God's face.

On My Own

2010-04-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

There's only one day to go before the Detail Design phase of our project is completed. That one day, however, is Good Friday. Most of our consultants are off on Good Friday and on Easter Monday. My company gets Easter Monday off work (at least the Irish do - I figured I'd commit myself to taking both Irish and American holidays while I'm living over here).

Most of the people, even from my company, are on the 3-4-5 schedule. That means that they stay in Dublin 3 nights and 4 days, then the 5th day is remote. So Fridays in the office are quite quiet because we don't technically have an office in Dublin. The halls get pretty quiet for those few of us who are resident in Dublin. Tomorrow it will be even moreso.

My two usual Friday companions from the HCM team will not be there: One is in Norway skiing, the other has been sick for the last few days. That leaves me as the only person on site for our team on the last day before a deadline. I don't like where this is headed . . .

Wish me luck.

The Butcher

2010-03-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

The last three nights Beth and I (and to some extent RJ) have been eating meat that we bought from a butcher shop. Butcher shops are much more common over here and have (what I perceive) better prices than you'd find at a butcher shop back home.

I'm curious if this has to do with the perpetuation of mass distribution in the US, or if it is more of a cultural thing. Here, there are two butcher shops in the local mall. The smaller towns are likely to have one or two butcher shops along their main streets.

Needless to say, the meat is much better than the frozen stuff that we're accustomed to buying at the grocery stores back home. Then again, we rarely buy food from the butcher counter at the local Jewel.

So, we're enjoying good, fresh meat on a daily basis. Maybe this weekend, I'll stop by the fresh fish market where you can actually see the fishermen carry the fresh fish from the boats to the store.

Your Country, Your Call

2010-03-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here is another reason that I like Ireland: YourCountryYourCall.com. The economy isn't doing so well over here. Yes, some people are crying in their Guinness, however, I love the government's response: Somebody give us an idea.

The competition asks you (the common man) ". . . to share your creativity to give life to new industry, revitalise or revolutionise an existing market, or even change the way we do business entirely." The goal of the program is to "pick two truly transformational proposals so big that, when implemented, could secure prosperity and jobs for Ireland."

The competition is open to anybody from any country. Two winning entries will be chosen to win 100,000 Euro each. So get those pens moving and check out the site. I just gave you a chance to win 100,000 Euro. Don't say that I've never done anything for you. Wait, that's a double negative. Say I've done something for you.

Here's another question for the peanut gallery: Do you think that the US would ever do something like this? Or do we already sponsor programs like this in the form of grants?

Leprechaun Hunt!

2010-03-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

This week, I got a recommendation that I should take the family up to Carlingford (map). Last night, I checked out their visitor's bureau online and I saw that they were having a Leprechaun Hunt . . . today! Hell Yeah!

The last time that there was a Leprechaun Hunt in Carlingford was about 20 years ago shortly after P.J. O'Hare (a local pub owner) found leprechaun clothes, some small bones, and some coins - which are the only leprechaun artifacts deemed "authentic." The tickets were 5 Euro each and the proceeds went to a local Children's Hospital and a local Hospice care. We were happy that the money was going to a good cause.

The hunt started out with some good craic (craic is Irish for fun - pronounced "crack") as we followed a bagpipe band out of town. However, the bagpipers weren't paid to make the trek all the way to the hunting grounds. There was a grueling uphill climb to get there and we almost didn't make it. When we started out, we were right behind the bagpipers. By the time we got to the hunting grounds, we had been passed by scores of leprechaun hunters. I think that the leprechauns' plans were to tire us out before we even could start looking for them. They're plan worked.

We only found one leprechaun, but we brought him with us (picture below). We didn't find any of the hidden leprechauns that were worth cash money. However, it was still a fun day (with more than the expected share of exercise) and we did get to keep our souvenir leprechaun hunting licenses.