Random Happenings

I've been so very busy recently. I know that I *want* to blog, but the desire goes right out the window when it comes to actually doing it! It doesn't help that I've got so many things going on this summer. I'm the programmer juggling chainsaws (Trinity reference!)

We had a relatively quiet weekend last week. I managed to spend Saturday relaxing in my comfy pants. Sunday was a different kettle of fish. I was up at the crack of dawn to force feed myself porridge and cadge a lift from Kev. We both took part in the Race Series Fingal 10km. I freely admit that some of us did better than others.. and everyone did better than me :/ However, I persevered and managed to make it to the line within 30 seconds of my previous Personal Best. Not too shabby for a hot muggy day!

When we finally got home, two hours later, darn matches in Croke Park! I had a lovely bath and some lunch before heading out the door again. Myself and Thom were able to sneak in some shopping and some fantastic Vietnamese food in Pho Ta in Temple Bar. I heartily recommend it, it tasted exactly like the food we ate while we were over there, but cleaner! :)

After dinner, we headed over to our old haunts to meet Siobhan and Co. She booked us all tickets to see Monty Python Live (Mostly) being streamed to the Screen Cinema from the O2 in London. There are far too many sketches I haven't seen yet!

Apart from that, work has been a bit mental. As well as everything else, we're hiring! So I get to help with the interviews, joy! :/

I can't wait until this weekend. The only plans I have is drinks on Friday, one of my friends is leaving her job, and having a long run at some point, hopefully Saturday morning.

The following weekend, myself and Thom are taking advantage of the lull in our social calendars and flitting off to Ballina for a long weekend of pampering in The Ice Hotel. I can't wait! :D

Then we'll be having Baby Showers, 30ths, Weddings, more races, normal birthdays and Thom's return to college. I need a summer holiday just to keep up with this summer!

Bad blogging

I'm such a bad blogger, I never did manage to keep up with diaries for more than a month or two..

I've also been absolutely shattered recently by moving flat.

As well as the summer of parties carrying on!

Last weekend was the HAG. Hen + Stag = HAG. Sandra and Aislinn are getting married in six weeks time, so myself and Thom hopped on a train from Dublin to middle of nowhere.

It was great fun! The highlight was definitely Boda Borg. Myself and Thom teamed up with Siobhan and Karl. We didn't attempt any of the physical-only challenges, but we spent an hour going through the mental-only and the mental/physical challenges. It sounds bad, we only got two stamps. However, we got the highest stamp count of any of the groups! Kev's team got one stamp, everyone else we talked to got none. We were close on getting a third stamp, but we spent too long trying to figure out the last room and it timed out on us :( I'd definitely love to give it another go. It's a pity there isn't one closer to Dublin!

Our new flat is working out great. We've almost got everything sorted now. There's just a few random things littering the coffee table which need to be sorted away and a few more dishes to do (everything was wrapped in cheap newspaper so has to be hand-washed before we put it away), but we seem to have happily settled in now. :)

Retaliation!

Hah hah hah! I'd better watch what I say or Siobhan Connell will be retaliating!!

What a WEDDING?!!

We hitched up Daidie and Olivia with great fanfare!

The bride looked elegant and graceful, the groom pulled off tails and the best man didn't lose his speech, or the rings. Okay, maybe he did lose both, but only for a few minutes! :)

We gave Karl and Siobhan Connell (not to be confused with the other non-programming Siobhans who appeared from everywhere!) a lift to Dalkey (made it in loads of time, go *my* directions!!) to a hilarious ceremony. I say hilarious for two reasons; one, whilst prompting Dave's vows, the priest said "take thee Olive". Dave wasn't trumped though and got his new bride's name correct. Hurrah! The second reason was because the second reading was from the Song of Songs and includes such lines as:

"My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag."

"O my dove in the clefts of the rock,

in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you"

Dave's tall and everything.. but a stag? ;)

We then shot off to Rathsallagh to THE. BEST. ROOMS. EVER!! Everyone was impressed. We had all been set up with named rooms. The bathroom was bigger than a lot of hotel rooms I've stayed in. I was very put out that I couldn't immediately have a bath. Darn make-up!

The wedding itself was a huge success. Kev gave a great speech, Ned cracked us all up with a poem about Dave and Olivia's romance and we all had little lego figurines to play with. Yes, really. Every place setting had a lego figurine minding your name. Siobhan Connell was an evil queen, I was a buccaneer, Karl was a punk and Thom was an evil dude with a helmet (he always looks good in a hat :) ). 

After the meal came so much dancing. There was no band, which made it better! Everyone had included a song request with their RSVP. The DJ played through the decades, there was music for everyone, including a ton of cheesy 90's music that we'd put in the mix (Chumba Wumba!).

We finally retired about 4am, I got up at 8am and enjoyed a long hot soak in the bath. It was HUGE! I *might* have still had some Amaretto from the night before, so it was very luxurious! I followed it up by going in for a shower (as well as a rainfall shower, there were also nozzles on the wall to give you a lovely back massage).

This was followed by a large breakfast (Rathsallagh House provides a giant ham as well as their fry), chatting to everyone, including all of the Siobhans, about the previous night and my lovely bath, and a wander around the gardens.

All in all, a mighty fine wedding!

Running, weddings and moving

I went for a ferocious run today! It cleared up in the evening so I grabbed my gear and jogged over to Trinity. There I did laps around the cricket pitch with intervals mixed in. I'm sure the students thought I was great entertainment as I whizzed by only to stop a minute later wheezing like an old maid. It'll all be worth it when my speed picks up though! :)

Dave's wedding is Friday!! Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!! It's gotten so close now! I have to try on my dress again and match shoes and a bag to it! We're going to be driving Siobhan and Karl out so I've printed all necessary directions. Let's hope that the combination of google maps and my scribbles of "turn left at a church" will get us there!

Lastly, we've finally found a new place to live! Fingers crossed yer man is legit and doesn't just steal our deposit and leave us hanging, that would suck. The rental market in Dublin is so bad that we've been looking for 4 months. This is the first place that's gotten as far as a deposit, which I must remember to give Thom..

Freedom, caffeine and dresses!

It's officially Summer now! Thom finished the first year of his Masters yesterday. No more study for him and no more sitting around and letting him study for me! Now I can help him catch up with all of my fun and exciting stories, it'll be great! :D

So, in typical student fashion, we went out last night. Due to release obligations today, I abstained. Instead I had a lovely combination of coffee and soft drinks. This blend of sugar and caffeine kept me alert and active until 1am. Including making tea for Thom after the pub, because apparently tea is nice.

This backfired fantastically when my caffeine-soaked brain decided to wake me up at 6am. "No more sleep for you!", it said.

I think I made the most of it though, I got up at 6:30am and went to the gym! 'Twas a fine gyming session.. apart from the fire alarm going off in the middle of it, whoops! I felt bad for the people evacuated from the pool, dripping wet, still in their togs and trying to wrap aluminium blankets around themselves.

Judging by how my week has started, that'll probably be the last proper training session I'll be able to work in before the weekend. I made sure to work extra hard on my legs as I'll be showing them off on Saturday. We'll be visiting Thom's parents for a family gathering and I want to look my best! This is going to be achieved courtesy of the lovely Ms. Connell lending me the most *perfect* dress! I couldn't have gotten a better one after a month of shopping, she's so much better at it than I am :) I can't wait to be all girly and get all done up and transform into a wonderful butterfly, or some such. It's a nice change from the boring software programmer I portray all week long :D

All systems GO!!

We're in full swing in work today! The release is next week so (as usual) we're swinging into action! Code Code Code!! Although I do love my Java automation, I miss .Net coding, C-Sharp (C#) was fun.. maybe that was because I was coding in my spare time and that made it *more* fun. The whole software/IT industry means that you've gotta go where the work is, and currently my work is in Dublin and Java, and that's good too!

Now if only there was less debugging and testing to do and more programming! :)

Sunny weather!

It's hard to concentrate when the weather outside is so … DELIGHTFUL! :D

I've hunted out some Summery clothes and myself and Siobhan were just IM-ing with plans for the evening. Mainly involving getting out and getting some vitamin D!

Bye-bye rainclouds! Hello sun! :)

Let the pampering begin!

I've taken Siobhan's advice and booked my hair appointment in advance of the next wedding, and Thom's family thingie. I went to the extra effort of booking a manicure appointment too! Thank goodness for vouchers!

Maybe if I go in to Peter Marks in Stephen's Green and tell them that Mademoiselle Connell advised me to go, they'll think I'm a hotshot and give me a discount? It's worth a shot right? This is Dublin, "Mademoiselle" should carry some weight!

At least I get paid before all my pampering.

Running time is fun, but friend time is better!

That title may be a lie. It's been over three hours since I finished the race though, so the pain has faded and my breathing is back to normal. For a flat course, the Terenure 5 mile was tough!

I got out in loads of time, but I had absolutely nothing to worry about as Audrey and Michael were there before me and collected my race number and t-shirt, bless them! :) Once past the giant queue for the ladies, it was off to the race. Michael is a total speedster, so we bid him goodbye at the startline and searched for the sub-50 pacers. This was the last wave, but we didn't let that get us down! Audrey set us both up immediately behind the pace makers.. I moved us back a step or two when their pace balloons started hitting me in the face :)

For a sub-50 min 5 mile, you need to average out at a pace of 6:15 min/km. Judging by my Garmin, the pace setters went at 6:40, 5:45, 6:30, 6:00.. Audrey stuck with them and I struck out by myself to have a steadier pace which, it turns out was by staying about 2 metres ahead of them. Around 3 or 4km in, they suddenly upped the pace and took off! They left us both behind, it was sad :(

I really started struggling with 2km to go. It turns out that my fitness just isn't up for a 6:15 min/km pace. Audrey caught up with me, and didn't even look smug as I puffed and wheezed the rest of the way. I had just enough left in the tank to have a mini sprint finish and completed it in 51:09.

Afterwards Siobhan was the perfect friend, she fetched tea, coffee and scones while the rest of us sat in a sweaty heap waiting the results. No spot prizes for us :( Okay, that's a mini-lie, Audrey and Michael stretched, I sat in a sweaty heap :) We did get to exchange pics of our dresses for upcoming weddings though!

All-in-all though, not a bad day! :) Siobhan didn't even complain about the smell as she sat beside me on the bus back to town. I used plenty of deodrant first ;P

Fun filled weekend planned

Oh I'm so excited!! I can barely concentrate on work. Audrey convinced me to sign up for the Terenure 5 mile this weekend so, come Sunday, I'll be racing around the place! It sounded so much simpler when it was just an 8km race, 5 miles sounds like too much!

However, it isn't just the race that has me all excited :) Audrey's bringing along a blanket and Siobhan's coming out to cheer us on. So afterwards, Ms. Connell and Mr. and Mrs. P-P  and I are going to relax in the sunshine and sip our coffees and have a muffin or two! It's gonna be great to catch up! :D

Friends can be so cruel

My best friend, Siobhan Connell, is now slagging me for the multiple posts in one day. Apparently I haven't blogged so much since our Trinity College days and that's not how a "Software Developer" behaves. She just doesn't understand that I need my creative outlets! :)

Running

Oh, I never mentioned! I'm now into running! It's not as much fun as weight lifting, but I can sign up for races and compete with people. All good clean fun, until Aud decides to trip me up (preview for Sunday's race).

Getting back into the swing of things

It's been so terribly long since I've updated this blog. I even had trouble remembering my username and password!

Not much bloggable seems to happen really. I cycle to and from a great job in IT (I'm working with Swrve on Mobile Analytics) and give out about other road users. The usual ;)

In all seriousness though, don't any other cyclists believe in the rules of the road?!