19th April 2015 - Overdue

Haven't written much in the last while. I've been so busy house hunting, I've barely been on the internet. It seems as if I will be leaving county Dublin for accommodation and instead move out further to county Meath. As of this week I have been priced out of Dublin. The market has changed so dramatically that I'm forced to look at different locations just outside Dublin. The demand is unbelievable and it seems that people in Dublin have more cash available to them to outbid you on property. It has become rather unnerving.

In my attempt to still get onto the property ladder I'm looking at Bettystown, Co. Meath, one of the last places before Drogheda. It's lovely place at the beach, less hassle compared to Dublin and it's considerably cheaper. Also the places are a lot bigger for the money you're paying.

I currently have bids in for two apartments and I would be happy in either of them.

Going to the market today in Dublin city centre (Dublin 8, just around the corner from St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christchurch) to catch up with a friends I haven't seen in a while. Weather has become very and quite mild. Looking forward to my break though.

I took a picture of a daffodil field when I was on my way back on Friday from Bettystown.

Daffodil field just outside Julianstown, opposite the cheapest petrol station I've found so far in all of Ireland and just a couple of minutes drive away from the location where I hope to be moving. I've been looking for this field for ages. I remember driving by once, telling myself to find it again to take pictures.

I've realised over the last couple of days that I need to replace my phone. It seriously has reached its limits.

Keep fingers crossed now that everything is going well.

8th April 2015 - A taste of spring and Linux experiments

Spring certainly has arrived. We experienced a couple of warm days. The change of the clock contributes - it's now brighter again in the evenings. I took the liberty and took pictures with my phone the last days.

Skerries Harbour last Easter Monday. I had too much Easter dinner on Sunday so I had to go for a walk around the harbour. And look, no clouds in the sky and the water is very calm as well. Unfortunately, I didn't quite anticipate the weather to turn out like this so I was still wearing my winter coat and roasting away in the heat.

This is a picture of a tulip tree. Everyday on my way to work I pass by these beautiful houses at the train station where I get off. The first house on the left once you leave the station has a huge tulip tree in his garden. It's a pity they don't last very long. Still, I think they are beautiful.

Well, to explain the second part of the post title, I have to give a few explanations. A while ago I changed my large laptop (17.2") to run Ubutu 14.04, a Linux-based operating system. Turned out that I wasn't quite happy with it and for a good while the laptop remained in my wardrobe unused.

Last week I decided to give it another go and install a different operating system on it. My netbook is running on Linux Mint Cinnamon and personally I love it, however found that it didn't quite agree with the laptop.

I called upon dear old Google to have a look at couple of different operating systems and after another not so successful installation of Korora 21 KDE, I settled with Korora 21 GNOME, 32-bit version. The other system didn't allow me to log into the root to run necessary updates (which turned out to be a whooping 522) and instead I was faced with constant error messages. I liked Korora - it's a deviate of Fedora after they split from Red Hat and I have to say that I'm happy that I moved again. Installation also went much smoother.

I have a thing with butterflies at the moment and decided to use a different desktop background for this computer.

On the left-hand side you can see some preset shortcuts to applications. The bottom icon allows you to look into other applications currently available. From there you can link them to this task bar.

I have to admit that I'm quite the fan of Thunderbird - easy setup even with more than one email account and the import of emails goes rather quickly. Now Korora offered me Evolution to set up my emails (after I remembered all the passwords) and I have to saw that I prefer it over Thunderbird. Set up is easy as well, also adding more than one email account. However additionally it has a calendar, address book and to-do task feature makes it a bit more usable compared to Thunderbird.

I'm still experiencing problems with the root access but I will sort that out hopefully soon. I've also set up OwnCloud and taken advantage of a German Cloud provider, BlauCloud, that offers me 2 GB for free on their servers. I wanted to make sure that I can exchange none-sensitive data between my laptop and netbook without the use of a USB stick. It's just something that has started to annoy me even though I have a good selection of sticks available now. Still the netbook to set up though and then I hope OwnCloud is the solution to my problem.

Overall, Korora seems to be doing well, nothing bad to report except for the root issue. Somehow it reminds me of - and this is just a personal opinion and no criticism - an Apple IOs on LSD. It's very colourful.

On a last note, I currently have a bit on a small house so I hope to have some great news soon.

23rd March 2015 - Post on Belfast

A couple of weeks ago I joined a group on Meet Up, that's local in Skerries. Over coffee we decided to do a bit of bigger trip and picked Belfast. A lot of people were interested in the Titanic museum and I was looking forward to a nice day out.

We car-pooled yesterday to get to the museum. There were six spread over two cars. On our way to Belfast I was lucky to get the front seat and took a couple of pictures.

Shortly before getting in Belfast we noticed this constructions just out side on the motorway. Just wondering whether it actually illuminates at night.

The great thing about the museum that you are allowed to take pictures as long as you don't use the flash setting on the camera. I missed a couple of things last time so I was delighted to have the opportunity again. This time, the shipyard trip was also open. Last time I went to the museum, this part of the exhibition was out of order due to repairs.

For anyone interested in the Titanic and its history it's definitely worth going. I didn't notice the amount of detail in the exhibition. They had actual carpet samples reconstructed for people to have a feel of the material used for the furniture. The above shot is one of the better ones. As far as I remember correctly the picture above depicts the reconstruction of the female 2nd Class cabins.

They also reconstructed some of the pieces of the Titanic such as a sample of the actual life boats used during the rescue.

At the end of tour we all had a nice day and I got to meet new people. And most of us were able to spend the remaining British Sterling we had hidden away in money jars. Couldn't resist taking a photograph.

It's always strange to have a different currency to deal with. And Ireland is one of those wonderful country where you just have to pass the border on the same island and you're suddenly in a different country. We all had a laugh about trying out best to identify the pieces when paying for our food bill and at the same time getting rid of all the small change we had. Above is about £45.00 in small notes and coins.

Now for some translation proof-reading.

17th March 2015 - St. Patrick's Parade in Galway

Just returned from the parade in Galway. I left the night before with a friend and stayed the night in the Galway Arms Inn at very decent rate of €79 for the twin room. I'm happy I followed a colleague's advice and left the night before. The driving was exhausting after all.

The next day, St. Patrick's Day, right after breakfast we already saw part of the parade's set-up from our hotel balcony.

After we checked out and brought our bags to the car we picked a good spot in the crowd and watched the parade.

After the town crier this was the first wagon to appear.

A paper version of St. Patrick.

There were a lot of local sports groups that attended and had prepared for the parade. A lot of kids attended from various hurling, dancing and judo clubs.

Somebody drove a nice old car right in the middle of it. I wonder what age it is? Can anyone guess?

 Followed by Bram Stoker's Dracula

The rest the parade consisted of different communities presenting their different events. It was all over almost in a flash. But thinking of parade's I attended this was one of the best. The weather was amazing, sky was blue, not clouds and the sun was already quite warm for early spring.

After the parade we had lovely coffee and cakes in a nearby bakery. Then we went shopping. I bought a lovely scarf in Swamp - I need to check their website. I tried on a lovely coat in teal in their shop but unfortunately the largest size was a little tight. Maybe I'm more lucky online.

I'm finishing this post with a video of Irish dancing I recorded in the Eyre Square Shopping Centre, returning to watch Doctor Who - bad habit, I know ...

Enjoy!

13th March 2015 - First successful pattern translation

A good while ago a found a few free sock patterns written by a German designer, called Susanne Koelling on Ravelry where she's known as Kennasus (I think you need to have Ravelry account to see her details - if you're not on Ravelry yet then hurry up; it's free!!!); you will find her blog here.

I dropped her message when I noticed that her patterns were only available in German. So I offered her to do a translation for one of sock patterns as a test. I really love her designs - loads of cables, a bit of lace and most of patterns are charted which I love. I gave up on ready written patterns instructions a while ago, usually trying to pick a pattern that has a chart. Charts, in my opinion, are so much easier to read. Written instructions make my head spin and once I have a feel for the pattern repeat I do without the instructions (maybe I should start writing out charts once I'm satisfied with the written instructions - could be something ...)

Long story short, she agreed to the translation. So we decided to her Sprossenleiter socks first - more than 150 people added the pattern to their favourite section on Ravelry and I believe that counts for something.

English version isn't up yet but soon to follow.

Busy weekend this week and I decided to drive to Galway Monday evening for the parade on 17th March with a friend from Skerries.

Otherwise, nothing new really - house hunt is still going on!

8th March 2015 - Spring is here ...

It doesn't look like it much today but on Friday afternoon you could see that spring had arrived in Ireland. Yesterday was a lovely day too; today has started off slightly grey but it might change later on.

They always have lovely flower displays and flower projects in St. Stephen's Green so I took the opportunity to take two quick pictures for the blog. It's beautiful to see the crocuses coming out and the daffodils.

I've actually changed my jacket - away with the winter coats, in with the thinner jackets and it's about time. Noticed thought that a button is missing and that I lost my head in Dicey's on Friday.

Here's the pictures:

Not sure what the "R" stands for but I think it's very creative.

Going to the antiquity market later today in Clontarf Castle. Maybe I pick up something nice.

3rd March 2015 - Back to the swimming pool

I decided it was time to go back to the swimming pool it being March and all. Finished work earlier today and headed to the wet. The result: my body aches nows but what can you do. With all the office work you need to do something and I was recommended to go swimming. So there I went, still the pool at Marian College.

Unfortunately the apartment purchase fell through (not getting involved with pyrite) so I'm still looking. Keep fingers crosses something comes up.

In the meantime and after a successful present handover for a newborn, I decided to use my big(gish) yarn stash and knit a blanket on my own - for my bed or future sofa. Wasn't too sure what to with the yarn anyway so I decided to put my own design to the test. Still going through the proof-reading stage of the pattern.

Here a picture of the current project, eight repeats of the blanket done and another two (if not four to follow). I have made a few rearrangements in my head and hope it will work out.

Going out for drinks on Friday and an early-bird dinner on Saturday - busy bee I am. If anyone asks - sheets are Penny's.

2nd February 2015 - Getting there ... eventually

So I've put some work into my pattern over the last days and I have to say I'm about 85 % complete at this stage. I ran my first trial-run of converting the pattern into a PDF and it's looking good so far, even though I'm not quite impressed with the size of the file (4 MB) and it will be even larger once I have the final picture. The blanket itself has been finished and is currently drying after soak in the sink. It looks lovely now and I can't wait now to take a photo of it once it's dry. It has turned out quite beautifully and it worked out exactly as I planned it. Now, I just hope that the recipients will appreciate it.

Had to go to the chiropractor today. I was out last Saturday and I was sitting on a chair without a back so my back was in bits. But he fixed it again. I can feel the side effects of working in an office, especially since I've changed jobs.

Didn't do anything wild over the last couple of days. Met a friend on Saturday and Sunday, went to the cinema on Sunday evening to watch "Big Hero 6" and I was in stitches laughing it was that funny. I can certainly recommend going, especially to those of you who like Walt Disney.

I wish you all a happy Monday and all the best for the week!

My alcohol-free strawberry daiquiri. You wouldn't be believe the amount of ice the bar tender stuffed into the glass.