Well, I was always a bit dubious about getting a games console, but after all the abuse and pressure I've been getting lately of some people (hi mum) to lose weight, I decided for the new year I was actually going to put in an effort. As my options were get a Wii with the Wii Fit or go to the gym, I decided to go for the Wii. The gym has always struck me as being just downright boring, all you're doing is running on the spot watching sky news on a TV in front of you with the sound turned off, listening to crap "thunka-thunka" dance music. At least with the Wii, I can play games as well. I'm managing to get about 15-20mins in every morning while I'm waiting for the shower, and so far I haven't missed a morning yet that I've been here.
What can I say, it does work. When I started on the 4th Jan I weighed 84.5Kg and had a BMI of 30.30, which put me a hair's breadth over the obese level (30 and over is obese). Not totally sure did I agree with being called obese, but now I'm down to 81Kg and a 29.04 BMI. Not bad I guess in just under 3 weeks. It helps as well I guess that I'm also doing what I used to do when I worked in Blackrock - walk back into town. These days I take the dart out to Blackrock on the evenings Michelle has college (twice a week) and walk back in. Is about 8.5km and takes me about an hour and a quarter. Not too bad! And as soon as the ski trip is over, I'll be back to playing footy on a thursday as well.
So, fitness here I come, slowly but surely! :-)
Friday, January 23, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Vodafone: we don't care who you are, here's a SIM card!
Well, I always had an idea that Vodafone were a fairly useless lot, but now I know for sure. My SIM card gave up the ghost over the weekend there, so I had to go into Vodafone to get a new one. I went in primed with some ID, my most recent bill and the numbers that I'd ring/txt most often, so that I could prove that I was me, but when I asked the girl behind the counter could I get a new card, all she asked me was my name, number and address! And she didn't even ask for a bill to confirm it! I could have been any frickin' body going in to get a SIM card!
So, if anyone wants to play a trick on someone, all you have to do is get their name, number and address, and go into to get a new SIM card. The one they have will be disabled and you can rack up all sorts of bills on them before they cop what's going on!
So, if anyone wants to play a trick on someone, all you have to do is get their name, number and address, and go into to get a new SIM card. The one they have will be disabled and you can rack up all sorts of bills on them before they cop what's going on!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Someone needs to tell Spar what an xmas wreath is....
I saw this in my local Spar on friday when I was looking around for some stuff.
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Someone should explain the concept of a "christmas wreath" to the staff I think, those aren't wreaths......
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Someone should explain the concept of a "christmas wreath" to the staff I think, those aren't wreaths......
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Prague
Well, we finally made it. About 6 months after we booked it, and after a few weeks where we didn't know whether Aer Lingus were going to go on strike and either strand us there or stop us going at all, we're just back from our few days in Prague. So, the xmas shopping is pretty much all done and dusted now!
For once, there wasn't a delay in Dublin, even tho we were flying out of the Ryanair prefab, and we got to Prague about the time we expected to. Was a bit of a shock when we got there - it was warm! Well, not exactly t-shirt weather, but 1-2 degrees, just like back home. After weeks of taking the piss out of Michelle, saying she was going to freeze to death there, it was almost disappointing not to be in -10 degrees! The hotel was pretty damn good, it was in a quiet back street in Male Strana, and the room we got was huge! Was nearly the size of our apartment, with gilt everywhere and a four-poster bed! Hell, even the bathroom had a chandelier! there was only one problem tho: their computer system was on the fritz when we arrived so they couldn't code a keycard for our door. Meant any time we left and wanted to go back into the room, we had to get the receptionist to come up with us and leave us in with the master key :-)
So, after settling in it was still early, about 4pmish, so we headed out to wander around town. I still pretty much remembered the way to go, so we headed for the main market in Old Town Square. Once we got there, it definitely looked the part anyway, very picturesque. First order of business tho, food! So we wandered around the stalls seeing what sort of edibles there was. Pretty soon we found something that was very much to Michelle's taste: a pastry thing called trdelnik, which is wound around a wooden roller, cooked on the spot and eaten still warm and rolled in sugar. After that, it was time to take a look at the market itself.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the marketplace. It was very nice, and looked very nice, but there wasn't a huge amount of stuff to get there. There was kitchy handmade xmas decorations, and various types of food and drink, and loads of stalls selling prague souvenirs, but not a huge load else - and stuff was repeating itself about every 4th or 5th stall! The markets that I was in in Brussels and Leuven 2 years ago when I was over visiting Sara actually had a lot more to offer goods-wise. But hey, at least we were there and not at home!
Next thing, as we were heading down towards Wenceslaus square to see the other market, it started raining. That wasn't what we came over for, we can get that at home! The rain pretty much settled in for the night, so after the markets were winding up and we were fed and stuff, there wasn't much motivation to go off exploring for a nice night-spot in the rain, so was back to the hotel. Turns out the hotel bar had something in common with our room - we couldn't get into either on our own! So, was an early night.
The next morning, we decided to do a bit of touristy stuff before we started the real business of the trip, so we went up to the castle. the rain had turned to snow overnight, but the ground was wet so it wasn't sticking, it just made things a bit more slippery. In the castle I found myself pretty much retracing the same paths I'd gone the last time I was there - is funny how things come back to you. We could have taken a funicular to the top of the nearby hill to a sort of mini-eiffel tower called Petrin, but as it was still a bit snowy and overcast the poor visibility wouldn't have made the trip worthwhile, so we set about the main reason of the trip - shopping for xmas pressies! :-)
Contrary to our expectations before we went over, the shopping wasn't done a little bit here and a little bit there - because there was a lot less on the market than we'd thought, I think we got pretty much everything in one of the stalls and one of the shops off the main square! It was also somewhat curtailed by the fact that the bedroom safe had locked shut on us that morning and the hotel staff had had to call in whoever made the safe to open it for us while we were out, so the only money we had was the walking-around money I'd put in my wallet the night before - or about 1/3 of what we'd brought over with us! By the time we got back to the hotel to find the open safe, we'd pretty much bought all that we reckoned we were going to buy, so the rest of the day was just spent wandering around at random with no particular objective or destination in mind - I think we ended up sitting in some cafe with a baileys coffee (for Michelle) and a beer (for me), watching the world go by.
The next day we had an afternoon flight, so there wasn't really any time to do anything before we had to pack up and go home. Turns out that we got to teh airport stupidly early - I'd estimated it'd take about 35-40mns to get to the airport by taxi, and it only took 20 in the midday traffic, and then the flight was at 3:15 when I'd thought it was at 3. So, we were there close on 3hrs before the flight! And then, naturally, just as we were wandering towards the gate after killing as much time in the duty free as we could, the flight was almost inevitably delayed! The flight coming in was late, we were boarding when we should have been taking off, we lost more time de-icing the wings and eventually took off about an hour late! Ah well, it wouldn't be a trip abroad without a delay somewhere would it?
So, that was the lats of our big pre-planned trips out of the way, have to start thinking about the next one. So, would I go back to Prague? Probably, during the summer. Would I go back to the xmas market there? Probably not.
For once, there wasn't a delay in Dublin, even tho we were flying out of the Ryanair prefab, and we got to Prague about the time we expected to. Was a bit of a shock when we got there - it was warm! Well, not exactly t-shirt weather, but 1-2 degrees, just like back home. After weeks of taking the piss out of Michelle, saying she was going to freeze to death there, it was almost disappointing not to be in -10 degrees! The hotel was pretty damn good, it was in a quiet back street in Male Strana, and the room we got was huge! Was nearly the size of our apartment, with gilt everywhere and a four-poster bed! Hell, even the bathroom had a chandelier! there was only one problem tho: their computer system was on the fritz when we arrived so they couldn't code a keycard for our door. Meant any time we left and wanted to go back into the room, we had to get the receptionist to come up with us and leave us in with the master key :-)
So, after settling in it was still early, about 4pmish, so we headed out to wander around town. I still pretty much remembered the way to go, so we headed for the main market in Old Town Square. Once we got there, it definitely looked the part anyway, very picturesque. First order of business tho, food! So we wandered around the stalls seeing what sort of edibles there was. Pretty soon we found something that was very much to Michelle's taste: a pastry thing called trdelnik, which is wound around a wooden roller, cooked on the spot and eaten still warm and rolled in sugar. After that, it was time to take a look at the market itself.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the marketplace. It was very nice, and looked very nice, but there wasn't a huge amount of stuff to get there. There was kitchy handmade xmas decorations, and various types of food and drink, and loads of stalls selling prague souvenirs, but not a huge load else - and stuff was repeating itself about every 4th or 5th stall! The markets that I was in in Brussels and Leuven 2 years ago when I was over visiting Sara actually had a lot more to offer goods-wise. But hey, at least we were there and not at home!
Next thing, as we were heading down towards Wenceslaus square to see the other market, it started raining. That wasn't what we came over for, we can get that at home! The rain pretty much settled in for the night, so after the markets were winding up and we were fed and stuff, there wasn't much motivation to go off exploring for a nice night-spot in the rain, so was back to the hotel. Turns out the hotel bar had something in common with our room - we couldn't get into either on our own! So, was an early night.
The next morning, we decided to do a bit of touristy stuff before we started the real business of the trip, so we went up to the castle. the rain had turned to snow overnight, but the ground was wet so it wasn't sticking, it just made things a bit more slippery. In the castle I found myself pretty much retracing the same paths I'd gone the last time I was there - is funny how things come back to you. We could have taken a funicular to the top of the nearby hill to a sort of mini-eiffel tower called Petrin, but as it was still a bit snowy and overcast the poor visibility wouldn't have made the trip worthwhile, so we set about the main reason of the trip - shopping for xmas pressies! :-)
Contrary to our expectations before we went over, the shopping wasn't done a little bit here and a little bit there - because there was a lot less on the market than we'd thought, I think we got pretty much everything in one of the stalls and one of the shops off the main square! It was also somewhat curtailed by the fact that the bedroom safe had locked shut on us that morning and the hotel staff had had to call in whoever made the safe to open it for us while we were out, so the only money we had was the walking-around money I'd put in my wallet the night before - or about 1/3 of what we'd brought over with us! By the time we got back to the hotel to find the open safe, we'd pretty much bought all that we reckoned we were going to buy, so the rest of the day was just spent wandering around at random with no particular objective or destination in mind - I think we ended up sitting in some cafe with a baileys coffee (for Michelle) and a beer (for me), watching the world go by.
The next day we had an afternoon flight, so there wasn't really any time to do anything before we had to pack up and go home. Turns out that we got to teh airport stupidly early - I'd estimated it'd take about 35-40mns to get to the airport by taxi, and it only took 20 in the midday traffic, and then the flight was at 3:15 when I'd thought it was at 3. So, we were there close on 3hrs before the flight! And then, naturally, just as we were wandering towards the gate after killing as much time in the duty free as we could, the flight was almost inevitably delayed! The flight coming in was late, we were boarding when we should have been taking off, we lost more time de-icing the wings and eventually took off about an hour late! Ah well, it wouldn't be a trip abroad without a delay somewhere would it?
So, that was the lats of our big pre-planned trips out of the way, have to start thinking about the next one. So, would I go back to Prague? Probably, during the summer. Would I go back to the xmas market there? Probably not.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Iarnrod Eireann: Punctuality and the small print
I was standing around the train station in Athenry this afternoon, with a few minutes to kill while I was waiting for the 13:30 from Galway, and as you do, I got bored and started reading the advertisements. One of them is that "Timing is Everything" ad where they tell you how close the service is to being on time, every time. For the Dublin-Galway line, this is apparently "100% Reliability", 91% Punctuality". Then tho, having the time to do it, I did something that not many people probably do: I noticed the asterisk on the word "punctuality" and then read the small print at the bottom which tells you what that means. Apparently, for Irish rail, punctuality means "arriving at the destination no more than 10 minutes late". TEN minutes? On the continent if a train is more than 2-3 minutes late you get all sorts of apologies! Irish Rail aren't exactly setting themselves a stretch goal here are they? And what's worse is that on the galway line, they don't even meet this rather generous timeline, of being in less than 10mins late on a 3hr journey. So 1 time in 10, they overshoot by 3% of the journey time and it's OK. I wish my boss was this lenient on my deadlines!
And what exactly does "100% Reliable" mean as well? They always get to the right place? So what they're saying there is that "The train that is supposed to go to Galway actually gets to Galway, as opposed to say accidentally ending up in Cork or Limerick, every time!". You'd be sort of fucking worried if it didn't wouldn't you? Or is it that "the train that is supposed to leave platform 2 in Galway station at 5pm that has a sign up saying it's going to Dublin can be 100% relied on to go to Dublin at some stage"? Again, we're not talking about heart surgery or a mission to Mars here, this sort of reliability should be a given as opposed to them boasting about it! Is sort of like boasting "our staff manage to get their shoes on the right feet first time every morning, aren't they great?"
And what's worse is that I've seen this "X% Reliability, X% Punctuality" signs on DART stations before, and they don't manage the 100% punctuality every time. I didn't pay this much attention before, but now I know what it is, bloody hell! So say the trains to Tara St are 98% punctual. That means that a service that's supposed to run every 5-10 minutes is late by more than 10mins 2% of the time. So basically, 2% of they time they're effectively skipping 1 or 2 whole trains! Where are these missing trains going? And what about their passengers? So as well as the Dublin DART Doppler Effect (where the pronunciation of a train heading south goes "deert, deert, daart, daart, dart, dart, dahrt, dahrt, dort"), we have a "DART Triangle", where trains just go missing? Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them?
And what exactly does "100% Reliable" mean as well? They always get to the right place? So what they're saying there is that "The train that is supposed to go to Galway actually gets to Galway, as opposed to say accidentally ending up in Cork or Limerick, every time!". You'd be sort of fucking worried if it didn't wouldn't you? Or is it that "the train that is supposed to leave platform 2 in Galway station at 5pm that has a sign up saying it's going to Dublin can be 100% relied on to go to Dublin at some stage"? Again, we're not talking about heart surgery or a mission to Mars here, this sort of reliability should be a given as opposed to them boasting about it! Is sort of like boasting "our staff manage to get their shoes on the right feet first time every morning, aren't they great?"
And what's worse is that I've seen this "X% Reliability, X% Punctuality" signs on DART stations before, and they don't manage the 100% punctuality every time. I didn't pay this much attention before, but now I know what it is, bloody hell! So say the trains to Tara St are 98% punctual. That means that a service that's supposed to run every 5-10 minutes is late by more than 10mins 2% of the time. So basically, 2% of they time they're effectively skipping 1 or 2 whole trains! Where are these missing trains going? And what about their passengers? So as well as the Dublin DART Doppler Effect (where the pronunciation of a train heading south goes "deert, deert, daart, daart, dart, dart, dahrt, dahrt, dort"), we have a "DART Triangle", where trains just go missing? Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them?
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Slough
Well, I've finally made it to Slough anyway. Since I joined the project, the mention of Slough has been sort of like the boogey-man: "if you screw up on somethign we'll send you over to Slough for a few weeks". Now that I've been there, it isn't apparenly all that bad. From what the lads had been saying, I was expecting the O2 office to be stuck out in the middle of an industrial estate outside of town, but it was actually pretty close in, directly opposite the main train station in fact. That puts it one up on Vodafone UK, where the office was a good mile or so outside Newbury! I didn't see all that much of the town itself, only what I saw out the taxi window, but it was at least on a par with the last place I got stuck - there was one shopping center there that the lads were complaining about, saying it shut too early in the evening - but at least it's there in the first place! Is one up on Newbury right there. And I don't know what the Travelodge that they stay in is like, but it can't really be any worse than that Fawlty Towers-type place I was stuck in when I was working in Vodafone!
To be honest, I don't really see the point of the trip over. Was up at 7am, in the airport at 9am for a 10am flight (which actually took off at 10:30, that's dublin airport for you), got to Heathrow around 11:45ish, made it to the O2 office around 12:30, had a sandwich in the canteen for lunch, had a meeting from 1pm to about 3:30pm, got the taxi to Heathrow about 4:15 and were stuck there til our 7:45 flight took off (on time!). We spent more time in Heathrow than we did in the meeting! I suppose the customer was just looking for that nice warm fuzzy feeling of being looked after, that we care enough about them to send 3 ppl over for a day to listen to their problems. Hey if they're paying for the flights, we'll go! And at least it got me out of the day as well, that's always good.
And now I can also scratch "Seeing Slough" off that list I have of things I have to do before I die :-P
To be honest, I don't really see the point of the trip over. Was up at 7am, in the airport at 9am for a 10am flight (which actually took off at 10:30, that's dublin airport for you), got to Heathrow around 11:45ish, made it to the O2 office around 12:30, had a sandwich in the canteen for lunch, had a meeting from 1pm to about 3:30pm, got the taxi to Heathrow about 4:15 and were stuck there til our 7:45 flight took off (on time!). We spent more time in Heathrow than we did in the meeting! I suppose the customer was just looking for that nice warm fuzzy feeling of being looked after, that we care enough about them to send 3 ppl over for a day to listen to their problems. Hey if they're paying for the flights, we'll go! And at least it got me out of the day as well, that's always good.
And now I can also scratch "Seeing Slough" off that list I have of things I have to do before I die :-P
Monday, December 01, 2008
Google has you!
This is somewhat funny, somewhat unnerving. I was showing someone in work today where I was doing my xmas day swim by opening up the location in google earth, and there was a picture of the beach tagged to it that someone had uploaded. So, on a whim I decide to see what Bonmahon looked like. Imagine my surprise when I see the following pic!
That house just to the right of the middle is my house! My house is up on google earth! Is there anything that google doesn't know? :-)
That house just to the right of the middle is my house! My house is up on google earth! Is there anything that google doesn't know? :-)
Well, it had to happen eventually........
This day has been coming for a while now, but I guess I can't put it off any longer. The customer I'm working for wants some face-to-face meetings (capacity planning for christmas), so I'm off over to Slough on weds, over in the morning and back in the evening. At least it isn't overnight job I suppose!
What will make this trip even more fun is the fact that apparently some chemical plant is after exploding over there today. Great, chemical fires, will have to have meetings in hazmat suits! I love the comment on the sky news website's page tho: "From what I have heard about Slough this explosion could cause millions of pounds worth of improvements!" :-)
What will make this trip even more fun is the fact that apparently some chemical plant is after exploding over there today. Great, chemical fires, will have to have meetings in hazmat suits! I love the comment on the sky news website's page tho: "From what I have heard about Slough this explosion could cause millions of pounds worth of improvements!" :-)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
On probation
A few days ago, I was thinking "you know, my 6-month probation in work has to be up around now, right?". I took a look to find my contract and to my surprise, I'm here 7 months today! I thought the end of probation thing was supposed to be a bit of a big deal! I remember in CAPE my end of probation meeting was just Marco coming up to me with a signed letter from Phil Sharpe and saying "Well, looks like we can't get rid of you now", but at least it was something.
So, I contacted HR to see what the story was, and found out that they told my boss that I was finished probation and she was supposed to verbally notify me, but didn't. Also, the CEO hasn't signed off on the formal end of probation letter yet as he's been too busy! Well, is nice to feel appreciated isn't it?
Am eligible now anyway for the benefits, they pay into my PRSA and I get a discount on a VHI subscription. What I want to know is will they pay the month's arrears on the pension, seeing as I should have gotten this last month. Have to find out as well the price diff between VHI and the BUPA package I'm paying for now will make it worth my while to switch. Also, apparently "You might be entitled to share options too but I don't know if you will get them in this round" - shares, yeah, no thanks, last time I looked my $120 SUNW shares were worth about $3...... How's about giving me the money instead?
So, I contacted HR to see what the story was, and found out that they told my boss that I was finished probation and she was supposed to verbally notify me, but didn't. Also, the CEO hasn't signed off on the formal end of probation letter yet as he's been too busy! Well, is nice to feel appreciated isn't it?
Am eligible now anyway for the benefits, they pay into my PRSA and I get a discount on a VHI subscription. What I want to know is will they pay the month's arrears on the pension, seeing as I should have gotten this last month. Have to find out as well the price diff between VHI and the BUPA package I'm paying for now will make it worth my while to switch. Also, apparently "You might be entitled to share options too but I don't know if you will get them in this round" - shares, yeah, no thanks, last time I looked my $120 SUNW shares were worth about $3...... How's about giving me the money instead?
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Broadband! :-)
Well, my parents finally have broadband in at home :-) No more coming home for the weekend and feeling like I've lost a limb, struggling for 5mins to download 50 emails (49 of which will turn out to be spam anyway) and only being able to look at one web-page at a time 'cos loading more than one is just too slow! Also means I can actually work from home after xmas - before I was looking at getting up at stupid o'clock on Stephen's morning and taking the train up to Dublin 'cos I'm on call the 26th-28th December and I couldn't do it over dial-up, but now I can stay at home and wait for o2's network to go tits-up from here! :-)
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Bloody Aer Lingus!
Saw this in today's paper:
"TRAVEL agents are advising customers against flying with Aer Lingus this Christmas amid threats of a "devastating" all-out strike in a fortnight.
With bookings poised to plummet and the airline expected to announce €20m losses today, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey called on both sides in the dispute to restart talks on plans to outsource almost 1,300 jobs.
..........
The chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association said customers were in confusion even though disputes between Aer Lingus and SIPTU, in particular, had a "track record of heavy posturing and empty commitments".
"My members are trying to find solutions for their customers and are giving priority to alternatives to Aer Lingus," said Simon Nugent. "They are backing away from Aer Lingus flights because there is a higher risk of disruption to them."
Well fuck them anyway. I booked my flights to Prague months ago for the 11th december, and now I'm potentially either not going to get there or will get stuck there because the usual fecking suspects in the management and the unions can't get their shit together and are rehashing the same old fucking fights as ever? Seems to be in their contracts that they have to threaten to go out on strike at least once a year, just to remind people that they're there, like. Have been caught out on flights at least twice before with these feckers walking off the job. What are they, French or something?
Screw them, time to see what other flights I can get. Think Ruinair have a sale on.....
(Later..)
Just after checking the Aer Lingus site re: their policies on refunds. Well, is pretty simple:
Fuckers. So looks like unless I want to take a €220 hit, we're stuck with Aer Fungus.
"TRAVEL agents are advising customers against flying with Aer Lingus this Christmas amid threats of a "devastating" all-out strike in a fortnight.
With bookings poised to plummet and the airline expected to announce €20m losses today, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey called on both sides in the dispute to restart talks on plans to outsource almost 1,300 jobs.
..........
The chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association said customers were in confusion even though disputes between Aer Lingus and SIPTU, in particular, had a "track record of heavy posturing and empty commitments".
"My members are trying to find solutions for their customers and are giving priority to alternatives to Aer Lingus," said Simon Nugent. "They are backing away from Aer Lingus flights because there is a higher risk of disruption to them."
Well fuck them anyway. I booked my flights to Prague months ago for the 11th december, and now I'm potentially either not going to get there or will get stuck there because the usual fecking suspects in the management and the unions can't get their shit together and are rehashing the same old fucking fights as ever? Seems to be in their contracts that they have to threaten to go out on strike at least once a year, just to remind people that they're there, like. Have been caught out on flights at least twice before with these feckers walking off the job. What are they, French or something?
Screw them, time to see what other flights I can get. Think Ruinair have a sale on.....
(Later..)
Just after checking the Aer Lingus site re: their policies on refunds. Well, is pretty simple:
Fare Rules
Cancellations
* NO REFUND AT ANY TIME EXCEPT FOR BUSINESS CLASS
Fuckers. So looks like unless I want to take a €220 hit, we're stuck with Aer Fungus.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Skiing is booked - finally!
Well, I've finally booked my ski trip for Feb now anyway. I say "finally" because 2 weeks ago I mailed one of the lads to see what the story was with the ski trip, only to get a reply that said "Dude! Were you not cc'd on that?". Seems everyone else organized and booked everything at the beginning of September, but someone forgot to include me on the mailing list! So, I've spent the last 2 weeks teasing out the flight/accommodation details that have already been booked and trying to find myself something similar. At least this year's trip is earlier than last year, the beginning rather than the end of Feb (31st Jan -> 7th Feb), but seems to be a bit more scattered in terms of planning: the destination is the same for everyone (Zermatt in Switzerland) but there seems to be 3 separate airports in 2 countries that ppl are flying into. I managed to get the same flights as some of the lads but after that we have a 3hr train journey to Zermatt, and I didn't manage to get the same accommodation.
What makes the return trip awkward is that the flight back is at 9am on the sat from Zurich, which means either getting up at stupid AM from Zermatt (like the first 2 trips) or leaving Zermatt on the fri evening and staying overnight in Zurich. Problem I found was that I could book a 7-day stay (sat-sat) with almost no problems but a 6-day (sat-fri) was over €200 dearer! So I went for the 7-day option and will figure out closer to the time what I'll do about getting to the airport.
Now all I need to do is book my gear.....
What makes the return trip awkward is that the flight back is at 9am on the sat from Zurich, which means either getting up at stupid AM from Zermatt (like the first 2 trips) or leaving Zermatt on the fri evening and staying overnight in Zurich. Problem I found was that I could book a 7-day stay (sat-sat) with almost no problems but a 6-day (sat-fri) was over €200 dearer! So I went for the 7-day option and will figure out closer to the time what I'll do about getting to the airport.
Now all I need to do is book my gear.....
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Well fuck this!
Just got an email from my boss, after asking her about how much time I was due off for doing all that work over the weekend. Here was the reply: "In relation to the time in lieu there isn't any for on-call unfortunately.". So, in other words, I worked about 13hrs on the on-call problems on Sunday, about 9hrs on the bank holiday Monday, another 2.5hrs Mon night/Tues morning (midnight to about 2:30am), and I'm getting fuck-all for it. The on-call rate is €50 a day for the week/weekend and €75 a day for the bank holiday - and that's before tax. So, €50 for 13hrs work and €75 for 11hrs work on a bank holiday.
Well screw that. Given my current salary after tax, €50 on-call money gets you about 3hrs of my working time (less if you take the tax off the €50). So, I'll do that much work, and anything after that, if the on-call phone starts ringing, it can just keep on fucking ringing!
Well screw that. Given my current salary after tax, €50 on-call money gets you about 3hrs of my working time (less if you take the tax off the €50). So, I'll do that much work, and anything after that, if the on-call phone starts ringing, it can just keep on fucking ringing!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
leaving work in the dark
I hate this time of year. I didn't get to see daylight at all yesterday so I didn't notice when it was gone, but today was the first day I've left work at 5:45ish and it was completely dark. Am not sure why we bother with Daylight Savings time, you're just prolonging the inevitable anyway. Give it a few more weeks and we'll be both going to work in the morning and coming home in the evening in the pitch black! :-(
On Call
Wow, what a shitty weekend.
I'm finally on the on-call roster with work, and unlike in my previous job, the phone goes off a lot. Quite a lot! When I was on call in CAPE, I only ever got 2 calls - and one of them was a wrong number. Not here!
Was quiet enough during the week, only got 3 calls (which is still one call more than I got in CAPE tho!). Then however, everything really kicked off at the weekend. The phone started going off around 2pm sunday and just didn't stop. Every time there's a problem on the network, I get a text message on the on-call phone, and I had to empty the message memory twice 'cos it was too full to get any more alerts! I was working 2pm to 3am sunday pretty much non-stop, trying to keep things up and running. Then I got 3 more calls during the night, one at 5am, one at 6:30am and one at 7:30am. Got up then about 10:30am and was working solid from 11am to 8pm last night - I didn't even see the outside world yesterday. Then, just to top it off, the phone started going off again about midnight and I was working on stuff til 2:30am! Thank god I was able to hand the phone off to someone else today!
Am quizzing the boss now to see how much time off in lieu I can get for all this..... :
I'm finally on the on-call roster with work, and unlike in my previous job, the phone goes off a lot. Quite a lot! When I was on call in CAPE, I only ever got 2 calls - and one of them was a wrong number. Not here!
Was quiet enough during the week, only got 3 calls (which is still one call more than I got in CAPE tho!). Then however, everything really kicked off at the weekend. The phone started going off around 2pm sunday and just didn't stop. Every time there's a problem on the network, I get a text message on the on-call phone, and I had to empty the message memory twice 'cos it was too full to get any more alerts! I was working 2pm to 3am sunday pretty much non-stop, trying to keep things up and running. Then I got 3 more calls during the night, one at 5am, one at 6:30am and one at 7:30am. Got up then about 10:30am and was working solid from 11am to 8pm last night - I didn't even see the outside world yesterday. Then, just to top it off, the phone started going off again about midnight and I was working on stuff til 2:30am! Thank god I was able to hand the phone off to someone else today!
Am quizzing the boss now to see how much time off in lieu I can get for all this..... :
Thursday, September 25, 2008
malta: impressions.
Here's just some general impressions of Malta, for ppl who might be thinking of going there.
Malta is lovely - was a lot warmer than here. Was about 27-28 degrees every day, altho we had spits of rain occasionally. Managed to get pretty badly sunburned, but then again that's par for the course on hols when you're Irish. Are a few beaches that you can go to lie out on if you want, but there's a good bit of other stuff to go see as well - can do a boat trip all around the island, and there's loads of historical stuff to go see as well. Is easy to get around too, there's rickety old buses that go all around the island, altho you have to really not be in a hurry to rely on them, as some of them only go once an hour (which sucks a bit when you're stuck on the south side of the island like we were at one stage), and the service gets a bit more spotty after about 4pm!
Another good thing about Malta is that it's so cheap! I went over with about €500 spending money for the week, expecting to have to go to the bank machine at some stage (as you normally do on hols), but the only reason I didn't come back with €150 of that still in my pocket was that I went a bit mad in the duty free in the airport on the way back! ;-) Costs €1.16 to get a bus from one end of the island to the other, and most trips are only 47c. A meal for two, including starters, mains, dessert and a bottle of wine, was about €33 - the most I paid out for a full 3-course meal for two was €65 (incl tip), and that was a place where the likes of Madonna & Guy Ritchie and Daniel Craig go when they're there.
Malta is lovely - was a lot warmer than here. Was about 27-28 degrees every day, altho we had spits of rain occasionally. Managed to get pretty badly sunburned, but then again that's par for the course on hols when you're Irish. Are a few beaches that you can go to lie out on if you want, but there's a good bit of other stuff to go see as well - can do a boat trip all around the island, and there's loads of historical stuff to go see as well. Is easy to get around too, there's rickety old buses that go all around the island, altho you have to really not be in a hurry to rely on them, as some of them only go once an hour (which sucks a bit when you're stuck on the south side of the island like we were at one stage), and the service gets a bit more spotty after about 4pm!
Another good thing about Malta is that it's so cheap! I went over with about €500 spending money for the week, expecting to have to go to the bank machine at some stage (as you normally do on hols), but the only reason I didn't come back with €150 of that still in my pocket was that I went a bit mad in the duty free in the airport on the way back! ;-) Costs €1.16 to get a bus from one end of the island to the other, and most trips are only 47c. A meal for two, including starters, mains, dessert and a bottle of wine, was about €33 - the most I paid out for a full 3-course meal for two was €65 (incl tip), and that was a place where the likes of Madonna & Guy Ritchie and Daniel Craig go when they're there.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Malta: a quick catch-up
Agh, I always do this: I go away on a holiday for a week and when I come back I blog about the first few days and then I lose interest and never do the rest. Well, here's a quick-and-dirty update of the rest of the malta trip, before I forget it all!
On the tues we decided to go to Gozo, the other island. By now we were pretty used to the buses and so got to Cirkewwa to catch the ferry without too much difficulty. Once we landed in Mgarr, the fishing village on the other side, we were mobbed by taxi drivers looking to give us a tour of the island for a mere €70 each, or wanting to bring us into Victoria, the island's capital. When we said we'd take the bus the answer was "No! No bus for another hour!". This would have been a little bit more believable if we didn't see a bus pulling into the stop right behind yer man as he was arguing with us! :-) Once we got into Victoria, we took a look around the citadel, a sort of mini version of Mdina, where we'd been the day before, got something to eat, and headed back to the bus terminal to do some more tripping around, as we were by now used to doing on Malta. One snag: it was about 3pm at this stage and the next buses to the Gigantja temples and the Azure Window, the two places I wanted to go, were at 4:30 and 5 respectively - and we had to be heading back to catch the ferry for around 6:15pm as the last bus from Cirkewwa to Sliema went at 7:15! So, we ended up getting a taxi to Gigantja and forgetting about the other place. Ah well, next time!
On weds we went to Marsaxlokk, a fishing village on the south of the island which was supposed to have an open-air market (like the one we'd missed in Valetta on sunday). Am not sure what I was expecting, but it was mostly just the same kind of knick-knacky tourist crap that you could get in any of the shops in Valetta or Sliema. After wandering around that for a bit, we decided to go to see could we find this "Peter's Pool" that I'd read about. The guy who'd given us the directions had told us it was only a 15min walk form Marsaxlokk. Well, maybe he was getting "walking" and "driving" mixed up - it took us 45mins to get there! ;-( Once we did tho, it was lovely. Unfortunately there were no real shallow bits there, and Michelle can't swim, so she just sunned herself while I went into the water. Makes a nice change jumping into water without having to stifle the scream when it hits you! I had a good bit of a splash around anyway and then we headed back. The only problem was I'd sort of forgotten the small insignificant fact that swimming washes off sunblock - by that night I was quite a fetching shade of bright red! :-)
On the thurs we headed south again to the Blue Grotto, a series of sea caves that you can do a boat tour of. The tour itself was very nice, altho I don't think that Michelle was overly impressed :-) After that we decided to head to the stone age temples at Hagar Qim, just up the coast. So, we headed for the bus stop, fending off the usual taxi drivers and their warning of "no bus for one hour!". Unfortunately, they were right! 45 very hot, very boring minutes later. we were joined at the bus stop by an american girl, asking were we waiting for the bus to Valetta. We replied no, that was the other side of the road, we were going to Hagar Qim. "But that's only 10, maybe 15mins walk up the road, I'm just after walking down from there myself". D'oh! So, me, Michelle and Sabrina, the austrian girl we'd been waiting at the bus top with, walked up. Just as we got there, the bus pulled up behind us! I know I wasn't exactly expecting to see Gandalf there, but the temples were slightly less then impressive (altho the oppressive afternoon heat could have had something to do with that). After that it was another 30min wait for a bus back to Valetta, where we all wandered around for a few hours doing nothing much in particular bar chilling before heading our separate ways again.
On the fri, we didn't really have very many plans so we just headed back out to Mdina and Rabat to see all the stuff that we'd missed thanks to our time-sharing friends. So, we wandered around Rabat a while, did the catacombs, the dungeons and St. Paul's Cathedral, where St. Paul originally brought christianity to Malta (well, the cathedral was on the site, he didn't exactly preach from the pulpit! :-P). at least the cathedral museum there was better than the one in Mdina! After having a nice lazy day there, we headed back to Sliema to finish off the pressie shopping for the ppl back home.
The last act of the trip pretty much was a BBQ on the rooftop of the hotel on the friday night, all you can eat for just €15 each. As it was a BBQ, the inevitable happened: just as we were sitting down and waiting for the food to cook, it started raining! :-) Not to be deterred, we pulled up a few of the big sun parasols to cover us and had the BBQ anyway!
The next morning, it was all over. Nothing to do but pack and head to the airport, back to cold, rainy Ireland!
On the tues we decided to go to Gozo, the other island. By now we were pretty used to the buses and so got to Cirkewwa to catch the ferry without too much difficulty. Once we landed in Mgarr, the fishing village on the other side, we were mobbed by taxi drivers looking to give us a tour of the island for a mere €70 each, or wanting to bring us into Victoria, the island's capital. When we said we'd take the bus the answer was "No! No bus for another hour!". This would have been a little bit more believable if we didn't see a bus pulling into the stop right behind yer man as he was arguing with us! :-) Once we got into Victoria, we took a look around the citadel, a sort of mini version of Mdina, where we'd been the day before, got something to eat, and headed back to the bus terminal to do some more tripping around, as we were by now used to doing on Malta. One snag: it was about 3pm at this stage and the next buses to the Gigantja temples and the Azure Window, the two places I wanted to go, were at 4:30 and 5 respectively - and we had to be heading back to catch the ferry for around 6:15pm as the last bus from Cirkewwa to Sliema went at 7:15! So, we ended up getting a taxi to Gigantja and forgetting about the other place. Ah well, next time!
On weds we went to Marsaxlokk, a fishing village on the south of the island which was supposed to have an open-air market (like the one we'd missed in Valetta on sunday). Am not sure what I was expecting, but it was mostly just the same kind of knick-knacky tourist crap that you could get in any of the shops in Valetta or Sliema. After wandering around that for a bit, we decided to go to see could we find this "Peter's Pool" that I'd read about. The guy who'd given us the directions had told us it was only a 15min walk form Marsaxlokk. Well, maybe he was getting "walking" and "driving" mixed up - it took us 45mins to get there! ;-( Once we did tho, it was lovely. Unfortunately there were no real shallow bits there, and Michelle can't swim, so she just sunned herself while I went into the water. Makes a nice change jumping into water without having to stifle the scream when it hits you! I had a good bit of a splash around anyway and then we headed back. The only problem was I'd sort of forgotten the small insignificant fact that swimming washes off sunblock - by that night I was quite a fetching shade of bright red! :-)
On the thurs we headed south again to the Blue Grotto, a series of sea caves that you can do a boat tour of. The tour itself was very nice, altho I don't think that Michelle was overly impressed :-) After that we decided to head to the stone age temples at Hagar Qim, just up the coast. So, we headed for the bus stop, fending off the usual taxi drivers and their warning of "no bus for one hour!". Unfortunately, they were right! 45 very hot, very boring minutes later. we were joined at the bus stop by an american girl, asking were we waiting for the bus to Valetta. We replied no, that was the other side of the road, we were going to Hagar Qim. "But that's only 10, maybe 15mins walk up the road, I'm just after walking down from there myself". D'oh! So, me, Michelle and Sabrina, the austrian girl we'd been waiting at the bus top with, walked up. Just as we got there, the bus pulled up behind us! I know I wasn't exactly expecting to see Gandalf there, but the temples were slightly less then impressive (altho the oppressive afternoon heat could have had something to do with that). After that it was another 30min wait for a bus back to Valetta, where we all wandered around for a few hours doing nothing much in particular bar chilling before heading our separate ways again.
On the fri, we didn't really have very many plans so we just headed back out to Mdina and Rabat to see all the stuff that we'd missed thanks to our time-sharing friends. So, we wandered around Rabat a while, did the catacombs, the dungeons and St. Paul's Cathedral, where St. Paul originally brought christianity to Malta (well, the cathedral was on the site, he didn't exactly preach from the pulpit! :-P). at least the cathedral museum there was better than the one in Mdina! After having a nice lazy day there, we headed back to Sliema to finish off the pressie shopping for the ppl back home.
The last act of the trip pretty much was a BBQ on the rooftop of the hotel on the friday night, all you can eat for just €15 each. As it was a BBQ, the inevitable happened: just as we were sitting down and waiting for the food to cook, it started raining! :-) Not to be deterred, we pulled up a few of the big sun parasols to cover us and had the BBQ anyway!
The next morning, it was all over. Nothing to do but pack and head to the airport, back to cold, rainy Ireland!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Time Share!?!?
Well, our 3rd day didn't exactly get off to the type of start we were expecting for it, that's for sure! After being late for quite a few stuff the day before, we decided to get u a little bit earlier - 8am instead of 9am, so we could be on the road that bit earlier and so not get stuck with getting places just as the sun was at its hottest and everything was shutting around us for the siesta. So, up early and out of the hotel by 9:30, all set for the day - or so we thought.
We were just after literally crossing the road from the hotel when we were approached by a guy who said he was working for the Malta tourist board and wanted us to fill in a questionnaire. After we did it, he gave us a few scratch card type thingies as a "thank you" for doing the survey. I got a bottle of wine on mine, and Michelle got a free holiday!
Then the fun bit started. Apparently to collect this prize we had to pretend to be married, as it only applied to married couples, and we had to go collect it at a hotel down the road, where yer man told us we'd probably have to take about an hour of listening to them trying to sell us time-share in the hotel before we could get out with the goods. So, we headed down to collect our winnings, thinking "an hour isn't all that bad for a free holiday!" :-)
FOUR HOURS LATER we were leaving the hotel. The first hour of the meeting was ok, we were asking the rep guy about all the things to see/do on the island, how to get there etc, and he was giving us bus numbers and times. One thing we hadn't realised was that one of the main bus terminii(?) for the island was only 5mins walk away from us on the Sliema waterfront, we'd thought that to get anywhere we'd have to go to the main bus terminus in Valetta first. After that though, it was the hard sell for 3hrs. Apparently what they were doing wasn't a timeshare scheme, oh no, you just paid your money up-front and then you had your own room in a 5-star hotel, pre-booked, for a particular week every year, for 37 years. For a small change fee tho, you could change the week of the year, or change to a different hotel in the chain, and at the end of the 37 years you got your initial fee back. And all this for a mere €12,000, payable in one lump sum or a series of easy instalments (plus interest of course). No mention naturally of the fact that your €12,000 now isn't likely to be worth anything like €12,000 in 37 years time..... Plus you had to decide on the spot, no thinking about it, no waiting around, sign the paper and pay the deposit or "lose this fantastic opportunity"
Everything was pleasant enough until we told them we weren't likely to sign up for it, at which point the hard sell really started, with varying degrees of higher management dudes being brought out to try to convince us by dropping the rate, planning more flexible payments etc. When eventually they got the message we managed to get out, me with my bottle of wine and Michelle with a pamphlet on all the places we could get out free holiday in, with a promise that they'd ring us a few weeks after we got back from hols to see when and where we wanted to go. At that stage it was nearly 1:30pm, so we headed out to find the bus we wanted to get to Mdina, our original plans for the day. Only problem is, when we got there around 2:30 and finally got something to eat, we discovered that we didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted to there as most things (like the cathedral museum and the dungeons) closed at 4:30 or 5. What we saw was nice enough tho, the view from the citadel walls covered pretty much the whole island, but it would have been nice to see more of the museums and stuff.
Well, at least I got the wine I guess, which turned out to be not too bad...... Am not going to hold my breath on those dudes ringing us asking which holiday we want tho! ;-)
We were just after literally crossing the road from the hotel when we were approached by a guy who said he was working for the Malta tourist board and wanted us to fill in a questionnaire. After we did it, he gave us a few scratch card type thingies as a "thank you" for doing the survey. I got a bottle of wine on mine, and Michelle got a free holiday!
Then the fun bit started. Apparently to collect this prize we had to pretend to be married, as it only applied to married couples, and we had to go collect it at a hotel down the road, where yer man told us we'd probably have to take about an hour of listening to them trying to sell us time-share in the hotel before we could get out with the goods. So, we headed down to collect our winnings, thinking "an hour isn't all that bad for a free holiday!" :-)
FOUR HOURS LATER we were leaving the hotel. The first hour of the meeting was ok, we were asking the rep guy about all the things to see/do on the island, how to get there etc, and he was giving us bus numbers and times. One thing we hadn't realised was that one of the main bus terminii(?) for the island was only 5mins walk away from us on the Sliema waterfront, we'd thought that to get anywhere we'd have to go to the main bus terminus in Valetta first. After that though, it was the hard sell for 3hrs. Apparently what they were doing wasn't a timeshare scheme, oh no, you just paid your money up-front and then you had your own room in a 5-star hotel, pre-booked, for a particular week every year, for 37 years. For a small change fee tho, you could change the week of the year, or change to a different hotel in the chain, and at the end of the 37 years you got your initial fee back. And all this for a mere €12,000, payable in one lump sum or a series of easy instalments (plus interest of course). No mention naturally of the fact that your €12,000 now isn't likely to be worth anything like €12,000 in 37 years time..... Plus you had to decide on the spot, no thinking about it, no waiting around, sign the paper and pay the deposit or "lose this fantastic opportunity"
Everything was pleasant enough until we told them we weren't likely to sign up for it, at which point the hard sell really started, with varying degrees of higher management dudes being brought out to try to convince us by dropping the rate, planning more flexible payments etc. When eventually they got the message we managed to get out, me with my bottle of wine and Michelle with a pamphlet on all the places we could get out free holiday in, with a promise that they'd ring us a few weeks after we got back from hols to see when and where we wanted to go. At that stage it was nearly 1:30pm, so we headed out to find the bus we wanted to get to Mdina, our original plans for the day. Only problem is, when we got there around 2:30 and finally got something to eat, we discovered that we didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted to there as most things (like the cathedral museum and the dungeons) closed at 4:30 or 5. What we saw was nice enough tho, the view from the citadel walls covered pretty much the whole island, but it would have been nice to see more of the museums and stuff.
Well, at least I got the wine I guess, which turned out to be not too bad...... Am not going to hold my breath on those dudes ringing us asking which holiday we want tho! ;-)
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