I’ve been pretty good at keeping up with a monthly report and setting new goals, here’s some for May:

* Django Tutorial 4
* Couchdb tutorial
*OSSBarcamp Site Launched
* May Letter
* 3 strength training workouts a week, 3 cardio workouts a week for next 3 weeks.
* The 5 mile race training plan on saturdays
* Washington Photos + Swift Pic
* Lose ~ 4 pounds ~ 2 kilograms by July 1st.
* Track what I eat every day in May.
* Order some moo cards for Ginger Robot.
* 3 Vegetarian Days

* Have scenerios for Todo app - #79.
Again I feel like I’m making very slow progress, the same items end up on list month after month.

Hoping for good weather for golf - #4

Monday May 18th

The streets are covered in Election posters “Clear sky morning, looked out across a messy street, poles covered in election posters. View over the city church steeples to the mountains”.       We both did Django tutorials after dinner.

Tuesday May 19th

Pesto Pasta then the Gym.  440m in 2 mins on rowing machine.  Took along my ipod with an audio book so that made the time go quicker.   I started studying for my MySQL 2 exam.

Wednesday May 20th

I ate vegetarian food all day.  We’ve been invited to play golf in a few weeks, which is also on my 101 list.    I have lost quite a bit of weight now 12kg since January.  I began to get scared that I’d gain it back, especially since I lost a large lot this week alone.  I looked at what the healthy weight range for my height is, and I still have 15kg to go to get there.   Let alone losing  5-6 more to put me at my probable right healthy weight.  i.e. over 20kg more to go!  Needless to say I freaked out and stayed up too late trying to adjust my thinking back to small short term goals.

Thursday May 21st

It was sunny and I got to explore the Iveagh gardens, which are gorgeous. The rose garden is getting set to bloom,  There are statues including some old ruined ones.  There’s a big waterfall and some fountains.  People were out eating their lunch in the sun. The walled garden is filled with old tall trees and deep green forest growth.  I’d like to go back if we get a hot day mid summer and eat lunch.

For dinner I made teriyaki udon noodles with soy beans and other veges, topped with some grilled salmon steaks glazed with mirin. We went to the gym, I tried the hand cycling machine, was a bit too scary because metal bars swing around near my face.  I did 2.1km in 20 mins on treadmil, 15 mins on the elyptical, rower2m/410m.   I have to admit to being a bit tired and willing to go home early.

I played Guitar hero for a while I have felt recently that my life is full of work and weightloss and exercise but not so much fun.  So I need to rectify that.

Friday May 22nd

Getting up at 6 was pretty intense, even tho I normally get up at 6:30. Did an hour of yoga and strength workouts on the WiiFit, That felt good, I have been feeling a little uncoordinated and out of balance recently so I hope to do a bit more yoga each week.  On the way to work I had time to stop in St Stephens green and check out the large orange flowers, they’re quite similar to the huge mystery flower at home.

At work things are getting interesting as I’m getting to learn some new PHP technologies and getting to do things in a more modern way with my latest project.  This is very interesting and should keep me busy.

After work I was really enjoying walking in the sun.  I stopped to take photos from Harcourt Street.  The sun gleaming through the windows of the facade at a building site.  Then I was taking a photo of a flower box on the light poll when two guys walked past carrying a huge set of balloons to decorate the pub down the road for the Rugby Match.

I met Jan on Henry Street where we did some window shopping.   I bought some clothes for our summer trip. Some new khaki&green clothes ready for our beach holiday A full length summer halter dress, bikini & skirt and a green blowse too. All slightly too small so I’ll have to keep on losing weight for the trip.

We also went to an asian grocery store and stocked up with some delicious goodies.  Haw flakes!  many types of noodles.  Some Pak Choi, ginger, chilli and tofu to make a delicious stirfry and ingredients for Pad Thai for next week.

Unfortunately we realised with the changes to the Taxes here in Ireland we’re earning much much less than we were last year.   We’re trying to do a lot with our time while we’re over here and less money is a problem.  Our best solution is to maybe move house,  The thought of moving scares me though, but it would have some advantages.  The biggest disadvantage of a smaller place would be sacrificing our hobbies a fair bit as Jan’s electronics and my Scrapbooking need space.

Saturday May 23rd

We went on our 2.5 mile run.  It went fine, though when my heart rate goes above 160 I get stitch like pains along my right side.  I just slow down but it’s a shame, I find outdoor running much harder than on the treadmill where I can get my heart rate higher and maintain it for longer times, and can go faster and burn more calories.

Jan jogging along the bay

I had my scrapbooking class with Lainey.  We made a layout ‘Top 10…’  Here’s Lainey’s one, mine isn’t finished:

I also worked on my New York Album, making three new layouts for it.  I took a photograph of the cute garden on my way which is packed with garden gnomes.

Back home Jan and I scanned for new places to live.   We found one place that seemed ok and we ran to the station and travelled into the city to see it.  It was OK, but the space being so much different is a little scary.  Unfortunately someone rang while we were seeing it and we missed out.  We could have been more spontaneous I suppose…

Saturday night was also a bit stressful trying to decide whether to move or what to do to reduce our expenses, more baked bean on toast meals,  stay in more hostels when we travel.  It’s hard to conceptualise living in a smaller space and I worry it could hurt our relationship too, let alone mess up our routines, and disrupt my efforts to lose weight.

Also the extra run into the city left me super exhausted.  I barely remember eating our delicious dinner of a lamb chop with spicy couscous, butternut squash and spinach.

Sunday May 24th

Completed my New York Scrapbook (1st for my 101 challenge). I even used some of the tiles I made at Crafteire February 2008.  Otherwise we had a pretty domestic day preparing for the week ahead.  It was so sunny that we went for a walk to Raheny to catch the rays.    I’ll publish this now as I smell delicious ginger cooking as Jan is making dinner.

This week has been a little dull,  full of routine and sameness.

Monday May 11th

We launched our new website Ginger Robot and set some goals for the coming months for it.  Jan and I have cooked a lot of delicious meals this week, teriyaki chicken, grilled lime salmon salads,  grilled beef sweet chilli salad wraps. yum.

Tuesday May 12th

The weather was pretty awesome the last few days.   We went back to the gym and it was awesome.  Tried out the rowing machine and did 400m in 2 minutes, which is a good starting point.  Be cool to test it out again in a few months.

Wednesday May 13th

Jan and I popped into a Chinese grocer and bought some goodies, udon noodles, mirin wine, Pokky.  Went along to the python meetup at the Bull and Castle.  There were about 20 python geeks and I shared pokky with them!  I decided we should buy a book about Django, and I chatted with Vicky about the python group and their plans.  I chatted with Stephen about his talk about Django and QT, he’ll also be speaking at the conference I’m going to in the Canaries in July!   I wish I could have stayed longer but i had a headache and the football blaring in the background was too much.

Python Pokky

Ireland Python User Group

Thursday May 14th

Gym again, horrid weather outside. I made myself a 101 goals in 10001 days list.   Since doing that I started thinking of a bunch of other things to do too, so have started a second place to put those goals as they come back to me.

Friday May 15th

I worked late then met Jan to try the new sushi train restaurant in town ‘Yo Sushi’ behind the Brown Thomas building.   We were a little shocked at the prices, and the lack of variety on the train. However you can order things from the menu and they have 30% off the bill until the end of May.   We noticed the fish slices seemed extra thin compared to the same restaurant in England,  we were left feeling similar to eating elsewhere in Dublin, ripped off by  skimpy portions for higher prices.  Anyway I’m sure we’ll be back, we love sushi.

Back home I looked up the nutritional information for sushi, while in general it’s healthy and low calorie, rice is high in carbs so adds up pretty quickly.  Also anything non fish adds up, we had duck rolls,  fried prawns, eel, so it wasn’t such a diet friendly night, but was fine in the end.

Saturday May 16th

Up to thrashing rain and winds.   By the time we were dressed for our run it’d calmed down to just the wind.  We went out into the wild weather with wind in our faces as we ran down to Howth Road.  We ran along the seaside being pushed to the side by the stiff breeze.  I thought it was very pretty,  grey sky, green mossy rocks with the tide pulled back at the waterway between our coast and the long Bull island.  Along the path there was purple flowery heather.  I found it hard to keep my heart rate down low enough to not be over doing it. I had to slow down a lot to get my breath back.  My body feels fine other than my lungs/heart, so hopefully they’ll improve as we continue our training.  Jan is really struggling to go slow enough to stay back with me, which he finds frustrating, but it’s nice to head out once a week together in any case.  We can go at our own rates at the gym Tue/Thursdays.

We relaxed in bed watching Eurovision with glasses of white wine.   We really enjoyed the performances this year, the stage was so amazing, with giant screens all around them, including on the floor, the quality of the screens was spectacular too.

Sunday May 17th

A giant flower appeared in our front yard.   I prickly pear like pod had grown in the middle of our wild garden and in a few seconds the flower burst out.   Anyone know what it is?

Mystery Flower

Mystery Flower

Spent the rest of the weekend scrapbooking, working on my New York Album.  Working on the OSSBarcamp2 website, planning to cook up a giant lasagna for the freezer too.

I found that as I read over my 101 in 1001 days list, I was a little shocked already at things I wanted to do the day before!  How will I feel by the time I’m 31?

Scary Goals:

• 9. Weigh Under 70kgs (Last time was my engagement party Nov 2004)
• 16. Get weight watchers gold membership (Failed so many times before)
• 31. Give Blood (They can never find my veins)
• The sheer number of travel items, can we keep up our rate of traveling?
• The hacking goals worry me because I haven’t ever finished a project for myself
• 84. Get a tattoo  (Always wanted it, have two designs in mind)

I’m already working towards some goals e.g.:

• 1. Complete a 5 mile race
• 79.Write a todo list application in django

Some I will achieve because I already started the planning e.g.:

• 44. Go to the Canary Islands
• 45. Go to Scotland

Now I feel a little bit like that’s cheating hrmn.

These are the goals I want to change my life a bit to achieve, and I’ll make plans for that change right now:

• 21. Complete 3 courses (0/3) - I can do the second MySQL Exam this year, this will take a fair bit of discipline and changing my schedule.   I reckon I make Tuesday Nights MySQL Study night, and do 30 minutes each Tuesday.  Putting this on my Calendar now.
• 36. Eat Vegetarian for 30 days (not in a row) (0/30) - I can do one day This Wednesday! Vego pasta the vego frozen meal for dinner.
• 72. Complete 15 scrapbooks (0/15) - The New York album will be my first and I’m going to work on that over the next two weekends.
• 91.  Spend a whole day playing computer games - OOOH Yeah :D.  I can buy a new game and get right on that one!

I just realised going to Sushi Yo last night is a new restaurant so I get to tick off one part of  number 35!

I guess I should print out this list and put it up somewhere…

Friday May 8th
It was a bright sunny but the weather applets said it was raining so I packed sunglasses and an umbrella. I had icy sharp rain sting my skin while the blue sky above improved my mood anyway. At lunch however it was gorgeous, no rain, so I walked along the Canal. There was a protest at one of the buildings, sirens and megaphone announcements. I ignored that and watched the little wood ducks with tiny bright red beaks swimming among the lillie pads. I hoped the weather would be atleast this nice for the Geeknic on Saturday.

Friday night jan and I shared a bottle of red wine and watched TV shows. It was very fun and relaxing. LUG Radio Live 2009 was announecd so we thought we’d be a bit ‘previous’ and book some flights and accommodation.

Saturday May 9th
Jan and I went for a 2 mile jog outside, it was raining unfortunately but we still made it through the route. Even better though was that the rain cleared and we had a gorgeous day for the Geeknic in St Stephens Green. We bought yummy treats, cheeses, salads, olive biscuits and some rolls. One guy sent along a huge box of cakes. We sat out on a blanket in the sun and it took a while for the others who were sitting under the gazebo to come and join us. It was a great day and so relaxing. I watched some ducks walk through the park then play in the fountain. I got to explore St Stephens Green for the first time, even though I walk through there every day. It was the first time I saw the multi leveled outdoor theatre area.

All Geeknic Pictures

After the picnic, Luis, Jan and I went and saw Wolverine. Before the show started I had a go on the DDR game, haven’t done that for ages and I wasn’t too good. I’d love to play DDR more often. Wolverine was a typical comic book movie. It wasn’t very good in general, too predictable and fairly bad writing. but it ticked all the boxes for action and nerdy goodness. I don’t like how movies make these over the top scenes that seem like they were made just for a clip in a trailer. I’d rather they left them just for the trailer or extras on the DVD and leave them out of the movie entirely.

Back home We ordered some Thai food and watched some more TV. I have a huge TODO list this weekend but I feel like I need to relax too, so I didn’t get too far through. We called mother types for mothers day.

Sunday May 10th
We went for a 30 min walk out in the warm may sun. We took our time at Donaghmede shops, window shopping, drinking cappuchinos and we bought some grocery goodies for our week. I also bought some new exercise clothing.

Wednesday May 6th
I met Martha, Andrea and John at the Secret Bar for a Girl Geek Meetup. The secret bar has cocktails and couches and is very cosy, but it’s also tricky to find. You walk in a doorway like an apartments and up some stairs then there’s a bar up there! I had a cocktail with crushed strawberries and a double shot of whiskey. Yum.
We chatted about many ideas, from codefests, to how to get people using computers more in Education. To a possible BBQ on a sunny day. Andrea now lives near me so it was nice to catch the train home with her as well.

Thursday May 7th
I met Jan for a wander around Dublin, there’s an area between Grafton Street and Great South George, that I have been wanting to explore. In about 45 minutes we had a good adventure walking around, we even found where the new sushi yo store will be. Afterwards we met up with Luis at the comic book shop, and I flicked through back issues, trying to find some of the Buffy season 8 stuff, there were a few odd comics, but we decided it wouldn’t be much fun reading it out of order. Finally we had drinks with the Irish Linux User Group at the Long Stone. This consisted of mostly one person at a time having attention to tell a long story. Another group was running a charity event below where they raised money to then be waxed infront of an audience. Plenty amusing.

Monday May 4th 2009

Had a little sleep in, but I did some exercise before our lazy long breakfast with the huge Irish Examiner newspaper spread out before me. Eventually we hit the road and found our way to Cobh. I was amused as we crossed a little bridge to see a castle for sale on the water, don’t see that too often. I wonder if we could buy it and set it up as a modern home inside. Looked pretty good with our car parked outside too!

Jan mentioned he wanted to see Cobh’s Cathedral and as we arrived into town there it was looming over the port town below. We stopped and enjoyed looking at this cathedral, and reading the guidebook about the Titanic and Lusitania disasters as well.

We drove along the Cobh coast line and stopped for a walk in the waterside city park and across to the Cobh Heritage office, where I asked about finding out more family history information about the convict in our family from Cork.

Next we drove to Kinsale. I loved the fields of cows and gause as I did for all of our trip.

Fishy Fishy lunch, as warned we had a little wait which gave me enough time to try their rose. Lunch was delicious, I had a prawn avocado starter, sharing some of the avocado with Jan. There was yummy soda bread with hommus served in an oyster shell too. For main I had the ocean trout with a tarragon cream sauce served on crunchy green beans and broccoli. Jan chose the Monk Fish after Vincent pointed it out in the English markets on Saturday. His meal came with a tomato pesto and potatos. I enjoyed a french reisling and Jan got himself a chocolate mouse for desert. The cappachinos were delicious too and came with little crisp biscuits.




Walking around the little streets, enjoying the brightly painted boutique shops, restaurants and cafes as well as performers outside.


Walked along the harbour a little way and looked at the boats docked.

We drove up the cliffs to Charles Fort, which is an example of a star shaped fort from the 17th century. This whole area was impressively large and it looked like it would have been fun to use the area as a playground when we were kids. From here we could see another fort on the distant peninsular and the gorgeous boats in Kinsale harbour below. We enjoyed walking around the fort walls and exploring the different bastions, watch towers, walls and other buildings below the walls.

Finally we drove back to Dublin, being stopped a few times by Guarda road blocks, one man on a race horse and cart, a couple of tractors and finally some traffic as we came into Dublin. We made great time and were back before it was even dark at 9pm.

All Our Cork Pictures

Sunday May 3rd 2009
We took some country roads down to Bantry. I liked the paddocks of spotty cows against the hills covered in beautiful yellow gorse.

As we arrived in Bantry we saw the water for the first time this trip. I always like how in these little towns they have each house in the street painted a different colour and again a different coloured door, it’s so cute. We stopped for a seafood lunch at O’Connors. I had a plate of local muscles cooked in white wine and onions with cream. Jan had deliciously tender roast beef which he really enjoyed and thinks was great value.

We stopped for a little while at the little harbour while we decided where to head next and I took photos out across the cute boats to the hills behind. We decided to head to the southern most point in Ireland. Mizen Head. The drive was so pretty, I even gasped as we turned one corner to see large pockets of water below us. The beaches as white and the sea is so blue as well. It looked like a nice place for an Irish summer holiday in a caravan park or such.

The town of Balleydehob had their local market festival going on and many people were out and about. There was a detour around the town center, and we didn’t hop out. Schull was also really interesting with people out on the terraces drinking beer and socialising. We wondered what it would be like living in a little town like that, Doing everything there in a little town, wondering what all the people there do to make a living. Though we know with our lifestyle it could be impossible, how would we get to conferences and technical events, or even see people we know.

There was picturesque landscapes around here as well, with large rocky hills to our right, and the gorgeous waterways to our left. We worked out way up the cliffs, pulling off to the side of the road for cars in the other direction to pass. We stopped a few times to get out and take pictures and just enjoy the view across the peninsular. Eventually we got to Mazen head which was a little bit of a disappointment because it’s a touirist attraction where you have to pay to walk further south.

It was nice being out in this time of year with the gorgeous weather, the bright gorse and baby animals out in the fields. We were a little terrified by the speed people were driving as the roads are quite bendy, twisty curly road signs showed what was ahead, but it didn’t help to see around the overgrown plants along the tiny unmarked roads.

We stopped in Skibbereen and picked up some picnic food for our dinner when we got back. Australian red wine, some cheese, bread, salad and fruit and nuts. We always forget to pack plates and cutlery, including a bottle opener, thank goodness for twist top wines.

I snoozed while Jan returned us safely home, though he’d wake me giggling at town names, Kilbrittain, Balleylickey, Glandore (which is sure to need a wizard), Castlefreke, Ballingurteen, Tearelton(a new one), Cross Barrey, as you can tell I didn’t get much sleep.

Back in our room we watched heartbeat which is always so nice, and ate our picnic. Now we’re hoping for an early night before we head out to explore Co Cork a little more tomorrow.

Sunday May 3rd 2009

Up early again, we went for another bout on the cardio machines in the hotel gym. 5 mins treadmill, 15 mins bike and 10 mins elliptical. We again enjoyed the hotel buffet, taking our time before we wandered out into the world.

First stop today was the Blarney Castle. As we passed through the gates it started raining which had me scared that we’d have to hide back at the resort for the rest of the day. Luckily as we got out of the castle dungeons it stopped.

We wandered around the Blarney Castle gardens which are adorable. We walked along a wood board trail which took us past waterfalls and lovely water gardens. We took some stairs up the hill and found a witches kitchen, a druids cave and a fairy garden. It certainly was a place that got our imagination going, and I already wished we were in costumes. We explored here for quite a while as the sun started to come out, really enjoying our morning.

Eventually back up at the castle we started to climb, stopping in at the rooms on our way upwards. There was the young ladies room, a kitchen, family room. Dining hall. The murder hole where there’s a hole above the entrance where they could fire arrows or pour boiling oil. Castles always feel really small, and there are no furnishings, just eroding stone. We have to imagine the people living there were also quite short.


The stairs get smaller as we went up and I felt a bit dizzy, mixing a little fear of heights with some claustrophobia. At the top we waited for our turn to kiss the Blarney Stone. It was pretty scary, you lean right back to kiss the stone which is down further over the edge of the top of the wall. I think I hit it half on and half off which is probably for the best.

It started raining again a little as we wandered out of the park back to our car, but that was the last of the rain for the day, which turned out to be a perfect day for exploring the south west of Cork County. … to be continued…

Tuesday May 5th 2009
Tonight Jan and I went to see the new Star Trek Movie, which comes out later this week. We won tickets to a preview at the Parnell Street cinemas from the site movies.ie. Jan and I wore our communicators that we bought at the Star Trek Museum in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, which made for a pretty nerdy experience, we even attracted other Trekkie’s over to chat with us.

The movie itself is action packed and pretty awesome overall. I think there’s enough references to the old and new series of the show to keep everyone happy. At the same time they seemed to have tried some new things with aliens, the ships and story lines to make it all new. There’s plenty to keep the viewer entertained with some chatty scenes cut short to fling us into more action scenes. The music is great too it made for a great night out!

I thought Eric Bana as Nero was a great casting, I really liked the character and thought he did it very well. I’d say there’s so much happening in the movie even a non trekky would enjoy it, they’d just have to ignore nerds in the audience gasping as they realised a reference to the past or who some new actor was supposed to be!