Came through a small town called Lanagh, but decided to go on, didn’t see a tower anyway. At the end of the road was a parking so decided to go in there. Still no tower, but there were two nice lakes. Parked the car for a fee of 4 euros and went for a walk along the lake. Quite a nice place as the pictures below will show. The tower will have to wait for another time.
At the end of the regular path, there’s another path that wriggles itself around the mountain. Almost seemed like the more difficult paths I encountered in Spain, while off-roading. When I was 3/4 up the mountain, I decided to go back. I didn’t have any water with me and felt dehydration coming on.

I will definitely come back very soon, when the weather is as good as it was today; it was actually quite warm. I will make a day of it next time as there is quite a bit more to see and I need to finish the climb.

This is what I see when I stand in the living-room, coffee in hand, staring out of the window, seeing what the world will bring:

Initially the end-date was set for December 16th. What a wonderful Christmas present. Luckily they couldn’t get enough skilled people to take over our jobs in Berlin. Going by the logs and experiences we and the customers have had, they still can’t, but this might improve. I will just not be able to witness it. The end-date was postponed to February 24th.

Little by little, people applied for jobs and got them, so they left, before the end-date. This meant, they wouldn’t get the ex-gratia payment of 1000 euros, but at least they had a job.

I waited until January, before I seriously started to look for work. I’d had an interview with Netgear in November, but their response to, if I got it or not was very slow. I got an interview with OVH in Dublin in the meantime, after I passed a Technical Test. OVH is the biggest Webhoster in Europe. The job was to support people and businesses who had taken out a subscription to either a server or the cloud.
It had been years since I’d been to Dublin, so was really looking forward to a visit. Was an hour early in Dublin, so had a little walk through the city center (well, a few streets), as OVH was in the middle of city centre. Had the interview. Didn’t think it went very well. Then went out to Howth. About 10 years ago, when I lived in Dublin, I and a friend went there regularly on our motorbikes. We both just got our licence. Nice to go down memory lane. Also went to the street where I lived before. Then back to the city, to meet up with the recruiter (Careertrotter). Had a nice conversation and a coffee. After that, it was back home for a two hour drive and the waiting if I got the job could begin.

I was also invited to do a Technical Test with Dell (also in Dublin) a few days after OVH. This test went surprisingly well as well. This job was Enterprise Technical Support Analyst. This means supporting owners of Dell Powerdedge servers as well as any other hardware from companies that have been taken over by Dell (Equalogic to name but one). A few days after my interview with OVH, I was, yet again, on my way to Dublin for an interview with Dell. This went well. I had agreed, seeing as OVH already said yes, that Dell would give me an answer that same day. I was nearly in Limerick when my phone rang, but the connection got lost straightaway. Hmmmm. About 5 minutes later, while ‘Tonight’s gonna be a good night’ by the Black Eyed Peas was playing, I got a call again. I got the job at Dell as well. Talk about life providing theme songs to situations. After about 10 nano-seconds deliberation, I accepted the job at Dell. Although OVH was a good opportunity as well, Dell provided better prospects; more chances to grow, more people (OVH was an office with only 7 people, smack bang in the centre of the city, which meant taking public transport).

So, now I’m working for Dell as a Enterprise Technical Support Analyst. Training will start in about a week. In the meantime, we’re doing callbacks for people who have been helped by colleagues, to check if the problem is solved and if the solution was satisfactory. A nice way to see what happens after a ticket gets closed.

Found a place to stay in Wicklow, right by the sea. I will put up some pictures of this later.

Assume, a colleague has no place to stay. Well, she did, but she chose to rent part of a room from me, as temporary accommodation and agrees to pay (part of) rent and bills.

Now, guess what happend after said colleague moves out and is presented with the bill. A bill, I might add, does not reflect what she really owes. Being the nice guy I am, I took money off the amount she owed….. Dis she pay the remainder? Did she heck. What she did do and continues to do, is slag me off in front of my friends. That’s gratitude for you. I should maybe have left her on the streets (where she belongs)

Shame really. When I was still useful to her, we actually had quite a bit of fun.

But, it doesn’t stop there. I borrowed a set of speakers to her ‘boyfriend’ (ooops, no, not boyfriend of course, they just enjoy each other’s company for days on end and they ‘understand’ each other). Instead of returning said speakers, the ‘boyfriend’ decides to take them with him to his new house…about 100 km away. Honest mistake? You be the judge. He didn’t have them when he entered this country and consciously took them away. A further 20 euros it has cost me.

Just to make things clear: all the above is not about the money per se. It’s about honesty and decency, of which they are both lacking and quite honestly, I’m disgusted at their behaviour. At my previous place of work, both of them acted all high and mighty and knew exactly what people should and shouldn’t do. In actual fact, and I hate to say it, they are about the most dishonest, disloyal and unpleasant people I have come to meet so far, I’m usually a good judge of character, but missed the mark by miles with these two.

If you meet them and you have the choice, I would say, quite honestly: avoid. It may seem and smell like roses in the beginning, but the rotting process starts soon after. See this as a warning and, with the above in mind, make your own judgement. Just be careful.

p.s. To the person (we both know who you are) searching through Dutch google: when searching, please spell Shannon correctly (two n’s not one). I mean, how hard can it be, you’ve lived here for nearly 6 months.

It looks like I have hit a nerve somewhere. One of the culprits (the, well, let’s call him male, for sake of argument), sent me quite a threatening sms last night. He has now admitted to stealing, sorry, taking without consent, my speakers. How sad can you be. Stealing a set of speakers, of which one of the satellites don’t work. What point are you trying to make.

Back to the threats: he threatened to come over and sort out the differences. I will upload a screenshot of the sms later. What he wants me to do, is make the tags disappear. I can do that. The post will still stand and most likely, it will still be indexed by Google. Only one way to get the post removed and that’s to return my set of speakers on my terms or better yet, transfer the money owed for the speakers into my account.

See below for the threat (yes, I alerted him to his spelling mistake):

(last updated 23rd March 2012)

After a bit of deliberation, I knew what I should do. Introduce the New Year’s Dive (being done by thousands of people, over the last few years) to Ireland. So, off in the car and to Lehinch Beach (of surfing fame). Swimming trunks were donned at home already. We arrived with 2 brave people, 1 wuss and 1 slightly hungover person. Despite calling the wuss a chicken and trying to persuade the hungover person that a dive would cure anything from man0-flu to hangovers, it was down to me and Cynthia to brave the waves. Clothes off, just swimming gear and run into the water. We noticed a few people looking at us with some derision and slight amusement. Odd that.

Bloody hell, it was cold. I have to admit not dropping myself in the water, Cynthia did and kudos to her. I did get wet thoroughly though.

We ran back to the car at a slightly faster pace than when we went in. The 2 none-divers stood at the ready with towels. On the way back from the beach to the car, I couldn’t even feel the bottom of my feet. Quickly into the car, heating up and struggling to get back into my clothes. Once that was done, we went to the local cafe for a well deserved (well two persons deserved it) hot chocolate.

I may very well do it again next year

To be honest, I didn’t try standing up this time just yet. First few times just laying on the board and get a feel for the waves. Later I even managed to catch a few waves while on my knees on the board. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite see how the others were doing (don’t have a lot of vision without my glasses. I have noticed I need to get a bit more upper-body strength to get good speed in order to catch waves properly.

All in all I was in the water for about 2,5 hours (excluding breaks), but it felt a lot shorter. Had quite a bit of fun and I will most certainly do it again.

Unfortunately, the waves were too close to the boulders on the beach and the guy renting out the boards and suits advised against it, he didn’t want to rent today. Probably a sound business decision, seeing as business revolves around repeat visits

Webcam

Instead we went to Galway, as we were already halfway. A few small country roads which scared Carina in the back (again, sorry), while Axel didn’t bat an eyelid…
Instead of surfing, we went shopping. Well, both start with an s, so close enough. Bought some shoes (old ones were about 4 years old and started leaking) and a frying pan with lid.

Surfing to be tried again next week. We’ll set off from here at about 09.30, be in the water about an hour later at which point comedy should ensue….

Set off at about 14.30 First bit of the ride is Motorway, after that a mix of 2 and 4-lane N-roads through the rolling landscape that is Ireland. Arrived at about 15.45.
Obviously I went there to kiss the Blarney-stone. But, it’s not just the castle. There’s also a mansion and quite a bit of forest. Went into the castle and the climb was a feat in itself. Very, very narrow staircase. Great views from the windows and various holes in the castle of the surrounding area.
After the kiss, I did the woodland-walk and lap around the lake. It said on the signs, it would take about 1 hour and 50 minutes (1 h30m and 0h20m), but that’s probably measured with stumpy Irish legs. I was done in an hour or so.

It’s well worth a visit and I will certainly be back sometime in summer.

As we were close by, we decided to check out the Lachin Aquarium as well. All I can say is, that it is an aquarium and that’s about it. What a disappointment. Looked like they dragged a net through the Atlantic for a couple of hours, built a few fish-tanks and plopped the caught fish in there. Some fish and crustaceans had barely any room to move. Ah wel, at least I’ve seen it.